I am curious how forcing people into an office saves money, building expenses, utilities etc etc. remote would be cheaper I would think. Large scale lay offs would save money, Musk isn’t wrong there… not sure that will make the remaining workers really work hard but yeah.
A huge factor is occupancy rates, which directly affect commercial real estate values which in turn affect interest rates on the loans for a given property. Commercial real estate loans are reevaluated every ten years and a low occupancy rate results in higher interest rates because the property is determined to be lower value. For example, Amazon is pushing RTO so hard because the South Lake Union properties are coming up on their ten year mark. Even a tiny increase in interest rate would result in (IIRC) billions in interest payments over the next ten years. Corporations are willing to risk the unknown labor/skills carnage than face the known interest payments carnage.
The other factors are getting people to quit so that unemployment/severance don’t need to be paid and managers with control issues. It’s all contemptible, but that’s what’s going on there.
As an aside, I work in software. Even in compliance-intensive environments (think: auditing, national security), some forward-looking multinational corps are going remote-only. And the really nimble players are remote-first. They get their pick of top talent at lower pay rates. I gladly take ~50% less to work from wherever I want on a flexible schedule without ever sitting in traffic. I think we’re going to see a shakeup in the top ten companies because new entrants are going to get superlative talent.
If you’re not already heavily involved in your state’s politics, get involved. So much can be done at the state level, even, and especially, as the federal government is a black hole of stupidity.
I think the funniest thing that could happen is the effective gutting of the Rxecutive branch due to Musk and the rest of Trumps toadies. Most of the power of the Executive is soft based around things like the department of education, if the states gain nothing or even lose something from working with the feds they could very well ignore it. This is usually something the Red states do but they dont have enough actual power both economic and social to force anything, but California has enough by itself to light a fire under the ass of all the states if need be.
These asscunts are going to bring on economic ruin. Just what the blyat ordered.
Of course, it worked out so well for Twitter.
