US Office Vacancy Continues To Rise
USA – Actual office vacancy across the country’s top office markets continue to increase, reported Yahoo Finance on Wednesday (21 December, SGT).
Based on data from security firm Kastle, the average actual office vacancy of the 10 biggest markets in the United State have reached a whopping 53 percent and the figure may rise further when long-term leases expire.
In particular, New York’s Comptroller and Independent Budget Office revealed that the office vacancy in the city now tops 20 percent. It also warned that long-term trends on office occupancy are hard to determine, reported The City on Wednesday afternoon.
Last week, in City Comptroller Brad Lander’s official forecast, he said that New York is expected to only generate 51,000 additional jobs next year and 38,700 jobs in 2024.
Similarly, the Independent Budget Office stated in its forecasted published on Monday that the city may only add 45,000 jobs in 2023 and about 90,000 in the following year.
If the figures pan out, it would mean that New York would not recover all its lost jobs until late-2024 or early-2025.
Worse, Wall Street is considering to lay off a huge number of employees after the stock and bond markets have plunged from their record highs and its profits have plummeted by over 50 percent.
It was leaked last week that Goldman Sachs is looking to retrench about 4,000 workers after its head count increased by around 33 percent since 2018. Wells Fargo is also planning to let go of a large number of employees, while Credit Suisse could fire over 1,000 staff.
