Many American workers are making their way back into the office as corporate leaders at companies like JPMorgan, Amazon, and Dell attempt to re-establish hardline RTO policies. But while a few major organizations have made a big splash about their mandates, new data shows that the recent RTO push isn’t quite the game changer that it seems.
Office visit rates were 10% higher in 2024 than they were in 2023, according to a new report from Placer.ai, a location analytics platform that collected foot traffic data from over 700 office buildings across the U.S. However, visit rates remain 34.3% below 2019 levels.
“Frankly, I don’t think we’re going to get back to where we were pre-pandemic,” R.J. Hottovy, head of analytical research at Placer.ai, tells Fortune. “I think the fact that it’s been more of a gradual recovery does show that a lot of employees have adjusted to working from home at this point.”
And although workers might be trickling back into the office, their strict nine-to-five schedules seem to be officially a thing of the past. Weekday commuting during rush hour (defined as 6 a.m. to 9 a.m.) was down 47.5% in 2024 compared to 2019, according to Placer.ai data. The company gathered data by analyzing foot traffic patterns at 60 major train and bus commuter transportation hubs across more than 20 markets in the U.S. Evening rush hour, on the other hand, was only around 30% less busy than 2019 levels.
“It feels like people are staggering the time they’re coming in the office differently than they were [before],” Hottovy says. “We definitely saw consumer behavior change, where maybe you didn’t go in for that cup of coffee or that workout early, but you shifted it to later in the morning.”
As for the future of work? Don’t hold your breath for a radical change in corporate America, says Hottovy. “I do think we’ll see more visits and visitors to the office. But it doesn’t seem like we’re going to see a major inflection right now,” he adds. “I think this is something more gradual in progress.”
