In-person work takes big leap in the Bay Area

"The era of baking bread on a weekday morning or wearing pajama bottoms below an ironed shirt for video office meetings appears to be on the wane in the Bay Area. Lockdowns during the early stages of the COVID pandemic wrought seismic, lasting changes to the way people work, with full-time at-home employment leading to widely adopted hybrid mixes of remote and in-office work that remain popular among many workers and employers."

"But a new poll suggests remote work is fading, and even hybrid models are losing ground. This year, nearly two-thirds of employed respondents say they worked fully in-person, compared to fewer than half last year, according to the poll by Bay Area News Group and Joint Venture Silicon Valley, a regional think tank. It's a surprising result, said Russell Hancock, Joint Venture's president and CEO. We have seen many employers say, The game's up, we need you back in the office.'"

A poll found that nearly two-thirds of employed Bay Area respondents worked fully in-person this year, up from fewer than half last year. The poll interviewed 1,743 adults across Santa Clara, Alameda, Contra Costa, San Mateo and San Francisco counties from Aug. 12–19, 2025, with a margin of error of approximately 2.6%. Employers in intensive sectors such as AI and startups are increasingly requiring returns to the office. Amazon ended its three-days-in-the-office hybrid model and ordered employees back five days a week. Google, Meta and Apple did not respond about future in-person plans. Remote and hybrid schedules have contributed to struggles of Bay Area downtowns.

Read at www.mercurynews.com