Office Occupancy Rates Across The Globe Recovering

GLOBAL – Data from workplace technology provider Freespace shows that average office occupancy levels around the world has rebounded by 3 percentage points to 22 percent, the highest level since March 2020, reported Workplace Insight on Thursday (16 September).

In fact, its analytics show that there was an 8 percent increase in staff returning to their workplace during the first 14 days of September compared to the whole of the prior month. In addition, the usage of all types of premises within the offices have risen, indicating that some normality is returning to the office.

Across the world, 38 percent of workspaces where Freespace sensors were installed are being used again. This works out to a gain of 8 percentage points versus what was seen in August. In particular, about 16 percent of the office space were 33 percent occupied, up from just 7 percent during the prior month.

Aside from that, the utilisation of meeting rooms rose by 6 percentage points to 26 percent, while the usage of workstations climbed by 4 percentage points to 22 percent in September.

“With the shift to hybrid working, conversations over the past year between employee and employer have been dominated by what the office can offer the former that they can’t get at home,” said Freespace’s Chief Executive Officer Raj Krishnamurthy.

“We always anticipated a sharp increase in the number of offices returning to work post-summer holidays but perhaps not as significant as this in such a short space of time,” he added.

Freespace, which provides workplace technologies that accurately captures space utilisation, also revealed that the busiest office days of the week in Asia and Australia are Mondays & Tuesdays, while Thursday remains as the busiest office day in Europe.