People carrying office bags were entering a newly built 60-story building at the intersection of Park Avenue and 47th Street in downtown Manhattan. Recently, the landscape here has changed 180 degrees from the past four years. In the meantime, orange screenings signaling the construction site have been erected on the road, and workers wearing safety helmets have been busy, but they are now neatly arranged. The word “JP MORGAN CHASE” can be clearly seen at the entrance to the building, which is the new headquarters of JPMorgan, the largest financial company in the U.S. JPMorgan has recently completed about four years of construction that began in 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic and cost $3 billion. The full-fledged opening ceremony will take place in October, but some employees began to come to work early this month.
The building doesn’t just mean the completion of one high-rise. New York, the world’s economic heart, has seen its highest office vacancy rate due to the spread of telecommuting throughout the pandemic. As the pandemic recedes, telecommuting has begun to be eliminated, mainly by large corporations, and employees are slowly returning to the office. JPMorgan ordered Chairman Jamie Dimon to “go to the office five days a week.” As a result, the new office building is expected to become an iconic place in New York in the future to show “a daily recovery from COVID-19.” The Wall Street Journal said, “The New York office is back. There is no more solid evidence than JPMorgan’s building.”
According to U.S. data analyst Placer, office workers in New York City in July this year were 1.3% higher than in July 2019, before the pandemic. It is the first major U.S. metropolitan area to see growth than before the pandemic. “It’s a moment when those who rejected the grim prediction that the pandemic will change the way people work forever can say, ‘Am I right?'” U.S. Axios said. “New York has a high percentage of financial-based companies, and the financial industry has been at the forefront of pushing for an order to return to the office.”
Companies are gradually making it mandatory to go to the office. JPMorgan, DELL, and Amazon have decided to go to the office five days a week, while Starbucks has decided to go to the office four days a week from October. IT companies that have been leading the work-from-home culture are also beginning to change. According to Reuters, Microsoft announced in September that employees living within 50 miles of its Washington state headquarters will be required to come to the office three days a week starting in February next year. The office rental market, which had been stagnant, is also showing signs of revitalization. Manhattan office vacancy rate was around 6% at the beginning of 2020 but rose to about 17-18% between 2022 and 2023, and fell to about 14% in the second quarter of this year.
SAM KIM
US ASIA JOURNAL
