I think the big losers are the service workers that provided services for all of those office employees: coffee shop workers, restaurants, drycleaners, caterers that provided employee lunches, cleaning people, etc.
A Starbucks, a drycleaner and 2 or 3 restaurants that were in my former office building have shut down permanently. My company stopped stocking snacks and catering lunches 3 days a week, and presumably they or the building have cut back on cleaning as well as general building maintenance staff.
Some of those jobs will come back when (if) we return to in-office work, but since it will probably be part time in-office work, not all of those jobs will be back.
Food trucks seem to be doing pretty well - when employees dispersed, they did too. I don't go into the city much since I don't go to the office, but now I visit the same food trucks in my own town and they seem to be pretty busy.
You’re exactly correct here. Our complex isn’t in the greatest area, but it sure was nice to have a dry cleaner right across the street. But in our complex we had a cafeteria and two satellite snack places. They are closed until our building hits a % of capacity as stated in their contract. I feel like there is a big opportunity for food trucks. Maybe use those empty mall parking lots and set up some times for people to grab food, set up outdoor dining.
Yeah, there are a lot of businesses that have gone under because they were geared to serving office workers. Out here in Silicon Valley, a Panera-esque chain called Specialty’s just shut down completely within a couple months after offices closed; most of their locations were only open Monday through Friday for breakfast and lunch. Downtown San Jose hasn’t been completely decimated, but I’m pretty sure there are a lot of places that aren’t coming back.
(N.B.: There is one Specialty’s location that has re-opened, near Moffett in Mountain View; apparently the family that started the chain decades ago bought the assets, and their one original location, back.)
I think in general you'll just see a lot of those restaurants and businesses that provide services to office employees move to where they can provide services to remote employees. Service industry businesses generally follow people and if people aren't going downtown everyday and instead hanging around the suburbs, then you'll likely see more starbucks etc in the suburbs serving that crowd.
My town already had one Starbucks before the pandemic and still has one Starbucks after the pandemic -- moving people to work from home doesn't change the economics of running a service business like a coffee shop or restaurant. My office building had 25 floors, and probably over 1000 people worked there. That's a lot of foot traffic, probably more than my small downtown sees in a day.
When I work from home I just make coffee or lunch at home - I don't drive down to the strip mall for lunch. But when I go to the office, I eat lunch out with coworkers, and my bus drops me off right in front of the Starbucks so it's easy to stop in for coffee.
I doubt that the employees that the lost jobs from the businesses that served offices were all just displaced to the suburbs, but if you have a reference for that, I'd like to see it.
It will take time for businesses to follow the workers. At the very least I would imagine the distribution of such businesses won't fully adjust until after the pandemic is over.
I think it is too early to say.
And given the shortages in servering labor, we may see a shift in the jobs people have as well.
I think the big losers are the service workers that provided services for all of those office employees: coffee shop workers, restaurants, drycleaners, caterers that provided employee lunches, cleaning people, etc.
A Starbucks, a drycleaner and 2 or 3 restaurants that were in my former office building have shut down permanently. My company stopped stocking snacks and catering lunches 3 days a week, and presumably they or the building have cut back on cleaning as well as general building maintenance staff.
Some of those jobs will come back when (if) we return to in-office work, but since it will probably be part time in-office work, not all of those jobs will be back.
Food trucks seem to be doing pretty well - when employees dispersed, they did too. I don't go into the city much since I don't go to the office, but now I visit the same food trucks in my own town and they seem to be pretty busy.