The job market is not as hot as widely believed except for the leisure and hospitality jobs that people only take as a last resort.
Come in Three Days or Just Quit: Some Companies Give Remote Workers an Ultimatum
The Wall Street Journal reports Some Companies Give Remote Workers an Ultimatum
List of Companies Making Demands
- Roblox: David Baszucki, the chief executive, said in a blog post that employees have until January to decide if they want to take a severance package or start coming to the office from Tuesday to Thursday.
- Amazon: The company in July told employees across the organization they may have to relocate to work from main offices concentrated in bigger cities such as Seattle or San Francisco.
- Apple: The iPhone maker starting last year required workers to be in the office at least three days a week. Some employees protested the move and signed a petition demanding a more flexible working environment.
- Google: The search company last year said most employees had to come back to the office three days a week. It said this June that office attendance records would factor into performance reviews.
- Grindr: The dating app told its workers that it would begin a hybrid-work model this month requiring at least two days a week in a designated office. Workers were given about two weeks to choose whether to relocate or take a severance package.
- JPMorgan Chase: The bank said in a memo earlier this year managing directors would be required to work in the office five days a week, while most other employees needed to be there at least three days a week.
- Meta Platforms: The parent of Facebook and Instagram said in September employees assigned to an office needed to start coming in three days a week. Meta said managers would review badge data monthly and people not following the rules could face disciplinary action, including termination.
- Tesla and SpaceX: Elon Musk, the chief executive of both companies, told employees last year they had to spend at least 40 hours a week in the office. He suggested in a social-media post that workers who oppose this policy should look for another job.
Add GEICO to the List
More Insanity from Team Biden
The National Labor Relations Board, NRLB sues X for firing an employee who refused to come to work.
On Friday the labor board charged X, formerly Twitter, with violating the National Labor Relations Act by terminating a software engineer who complained about new owner Elon Musk’s return-to-office policy. “If you can physically make it to an office and you don’t show up, resignation accepted,” Mr. Musk allegedly told workers.
Software engineer Yao Yue then tweeted, “Don’t resign, let him fire you. You gain literally nothing out of resignation.” Ms. Yue was soon fired. According to the NLRB, “Twitter chose her for layoff in retaliation for her attempt to organize her co-workers not to resign, so they would have better legal footing to challenge any separation from Twitter.”
The NLRB says X has “been interfering with, restraining and coercing employees in the exercise of rights granted” under U.S. labor law. But nothing in the law grants workers the right to kvetch publicly or privately about their employer’s policies without potential consequences to their employment.
There is now a new mandate from the Biden Administration: The Right to Work From Home.
There is no end to the insanity from this administration.
Job Openings Rise in August, Quits and Layoffs Vary by Sector
On October 3, I noted Job Openings Rise in August, Quits and Layoffs Vary by Sector
Quits rose in Leisure and Hospitality, and Accommodation and Food Service. Quits generally declined elsewhere.
The number of job openings is very suspect for many reasons: Companies do not take down filled positions, survey responses are sporadic, companies are not really looking to hire but if the perfect candidate comes along they will, motivation reasons, and it costs northing to leave an opening in place.
Openings are suspect, quits are the real deal.
Job Quits by Sector in Thousands
Quits rose in Leisure and Hospitality, and Accommodation and Food Service. Quits generally declined elsewhere.
The number of quits in L&H and food service is elevated. Those groups cannot work from home and will readily jump for higher wages.
30 Percent Raise Coming Up!
For discussion please see Minimum Wage for Fast Food Workers Jumps 30% to $20 Per Hour in California
If McDonalds pays $20, why take $15.50 elsewhere?
The $4.50 hike from $15.50 to $20 is a massive 30 percent jump.
Expect prices at all restaurant to rise. Then think ahead. This extra money is certain to increase demands for all goods and services.
The number of quits will surge and so will the stress on small businesses who cannot afford a 30 percent hike in payroll costs.
This is Bidenomics in actions.
Factor in free child care, ridiculous education policies, and insane environmental regulation.
As of today you can add the right to work from home as a guaranteed benefit anywhere is it possible to do so.
Wake Up Mr. President, Consumers Want Hybrids, Not EVs
For discussion of consumers against Bidenomics, please see Wake Up Mr. President, Consumers Want Hybrids, Not EVs
Companies are huffing and puffing about return to the office but it’s all bark and no bite! If you look at the Kastle Systems’ actual work from from the office index (based on actual ID badge swipes) – it hasn’t moved in over a year. Nationally, we are still at around 50% in-person office attendance compared to prepandemic.
So yes, you hear a lot of noise from companies about getting folks back in the office but the reality on the ground is that there has been virtually no change in office attendance since the end of summer 2022.
If I worked for Roblox I would definitely take the severance package and start looking for another job. At some point all of the child exploitation and grooming scandals perpetrated by Roblox employees and contractors will kill it. And it’s not like this is a big secret; folks have been reporting on it since at least 2019. Beyond that, this is not some revolutionary new tech that is going to disrupt and dominate a market sector. It’s a kids computer game or gaming environment.
owners and serfs. owners and employees. owners and pawns. somethings never change. if your an employee you are a glorified serf……….
Go do research on what a “Serf” actually is…
Not the same. You can own the land now, you can build your OWN business with very little restrictions, you can move to any state in the country almost any time you want. You can switch jobs or become a contractor under your agreed upon terms.
This isn’t Medieval England. You many not be happy about your lot in life…but you can get out of it anytime you really want to make the effort.
wishful thinking. most amerikans are employee serfs…….in debt, and trained since K through university asshole factories to get a “JOB”. owners and serfs. personally, i’ve never worked a day in my life. i love what i do and have no boss man………..
I own my own companies, so I don’t disagree with Business Ownership being a big deal. But there are plenty of my friends who had Extremely Well Paying Jobs, bought Rental Properties and / or Invested in Companies or did well enough in the Stock Market to retire very early and do whatever they wanted.
Serf is the wrong description…you really mean peasants. Not that I agree with that…people can leave and move anywhere in the country and don’t have to stay with the same job and anyone who buys a reasonably priced home and hangs on to it start growing wealth over time, equity that has tax benefits.
What I have not heard is, are there any studies on how productive the workers are in office vs WFH. Maybe the companies have done that and this is why they want workers in office. That is really the crux of the matter is WFH as productive as in office or not?
Working as a “House N***er” on the corporate plantation becomes less desirable by the day.
A good way to waste thousands of hours in the corporate offices across the country today would be to throw out this one when you are by the coffee station –
“Do you think that Iowa punt returner kid REALLY called for for a fair catch?”
Be especially on-guard if the person throwing this out has a Russian accent – productivity sabotoge!
Blame it on Elon Musk. As soon as the pandemic was over he insisted they come back to work and he held everybody to it. He said it isn’t fair to the employees who have to come in physically to do their jobs and that is true. Secondly the performance of his companies pretty much show the merits of everybody coming into work from janitor to CEO. It is true from the company point of view physical presence does generate better returns to the company overall.
Twitter is a good example. 75% of the company worked from home and they all were sure that they, individually, were irreplaceable because they were so good at their jobs. It turned out that they weren’t necessary at all and that in reality they sucked at their jobs without even knowing it. Musk’s example opened eyes. Maybe we don’t need all these people. Let’s insist they come to the office and see who is committed and who is not. Let’s see who is ambitious and who is not.
The risk is that you lose good employees and that risk is unacceptable for a mediocre company. However performing companies attract good employees so for them losing a good employee is not a problem because they can get another. That’s what it comes down too.
For the employee it really sucks to be called back. I will not talk about the morality of it. If you are called back to the office, you have a tough decision to make.
You really shouldn’t be lecturing about morality Dougie ( and get your head out of your ass)
I didn’t talk about morality, Fredo, although if I had you would not understand what I was saying. Good for you that your job keeps you from being mobilized. It will be the Rasputitsa soon.
Twitter is the worst performing of all of Musk’s many companies. The other companies are manufacturing with massive GigaFactories, Warehouses and Assembly and Launch Facilities. This a majority of those employees SHOULD be on-site.
His answer to almost everything is to “sleep on the Factory Floor” until it’s fixed.
Many people don’t work well that way…or their job is actually done better remotely, especially if it requires less interruption or more familiar surroundings.
Twitter may not even survive, it’s certainly worth a fraction of the amount he purchased it for originally.
I would tend to bet he can turn it into something like X – The Everything App, similar to WeChat or something like Super-PayPal because he and his Teams are just that good and talented…and he almost never quits on a major challenge.
Plenty of people DO work better from home. Need to have good leadership to lead them.
He has only had Twitter for short while but it is turning cash-flow positive. He has big plans for it and it is something he has been wanting to do since the 1990’s.
In his companies there are jobs that could be done off-site and would be in other companies but he does insist of it not being fair to have some exonerated and some not and I do agree. It does hurt company cohesion and creates jealousies. Also he is right in that face-to-face work does generate synergies. That is the basis of our evolutionary success as a species and Zoom calls can’t replace it. Maybe with Meta’s simulations one day it could work but we are far away yet. Sure, some people can’t work that way but they will have to find their own way outside the company.
Zoom calls (and Slack messaging and other things) have ALREADY replaced in person working in many successful companies.
Tesla and SpaceX are two of the Top Performing Companies in the World because they have some of the Best Talent in the World…not because everyone goes to one office and sits in cubicles.
There are plenty of people at Tesla that would perform better working remotely. Tesla / SpaceX has enough cachet among Engineers and Software people and they are working on some of the most challenging problems facing the Planet / Multi-Planetary that many great employees will go through commuting hell to go into the office.
Very few other companies have that level of demand for their jobs.
Plenty of Tech Companies fully understand that the best Talent should work in the way best for them. If you’re not a manufacturing company, it’s a very different situation.
Cheers!
these rich world problems are rounding errors in life…………FFS your lives are so fricking easy.
There will be a lot of bank failures in 1Q24. Don’t say you weren’t warned.
Banks can’t keep absorbing hard body shots from commercial real estate losses. What is to be done with these properties? Demo them and build fentanyl homeless tent cities maybe. One of the only industries thriving right now is homeless drug addicts. Democrat cities can’t seem to get enough of it.
Convert 15% of the Commercial Space to Residential and this problem goes away in two years. Most cities need WAY more housing anyway. Plenty of people want to live in cities as long as there’s housing available.
Cheers!
A lot of malls are being converted to mixed housing (Homes, Apartments and Businesses). In my area it has been going on for 2+ years now. In fact my towns Mall closed nearly 2 years ago, and is in current negotiations to do just that with it.
I love the idea, as it provides worker housing, all sorts of on-site resources available!! Some have on-site daycare, haircuts, restaurants and so much more…
“Plenty of people want to live in cities as long as there’s housing available.”
Unfortunately most of them are from Central and South America, Africa and the Middle East.
Let them all fail NO bailouts like in 2008 and I have all my wealth in cash , metals and international rental real estate in prime locations
I have everything in crypto, tupperware and international questionable locations.
Oh those poor cities and CRE owners/investors! Yes, heard that this bat signal went out at many companies in past 2 weeks. Exactly what Scott said above. Michael Scott, Phyllis and Angela haven’t had much to do past 4 years.
Sorry Mish. As an old Archie Bunker Boomer I’m now all about social distancing and saving the planet, in my pajamas. The corps, media and politicians have told me this is the highest priority the last several years, don’tcha know. Don’t need to be around any young female MeToo elite university psychos, either. If I have the urge to get mugged or murdered in Chicago, I’ll just have tour on the weekends. Fill Manhattan, the Willis Tower etc with migrants from Abbott’s buses. Grandma Yellen will print their room and board. Everyone’s a winner!
Woke idiots will be hanging around intersections with “Will do menial jobs for food” signs by the time that the political class finishes destroying what little initiative remains on the US. I have no problem with that, they earned that fate. Unfortunately thay will be dragging quite a few people who deserve better down with them.
The Repubs/managers/company owners/idle rich are getting nervous. For the last 50 years, they had it all … slammed down wages, crap benefits, no more awful pensions, soul-killing work. Then in the last few years, labor via a shortage in workers have managed to make unacceptable gains … work at home, strikes, the proles were starting to think this world actually may work for them again. I worked in downtown Chicago for 25 years and home for 9 … I also watching dad in his downtown office job. The only people who dont like work at home are managers who have no longer anything to manage. Cant see them means they must be up to no good. You can goof off in an office or you can goof off at home. I choose home.
It is easier to goof off in the office environment.
Home has too many kids and/or significant other to keep track of what you’re doing.
Mish wrote “Expect prices at all [CA] restaurant[s] to rise. Then think ahead.”
Think of the customer. We can doubt whether the customer can afford the price increase. The customer could respond by down-shifting what they buy – no more Big Macs or fries. (Thus eating healthier, eh?) They can purchase convenience store sandwiches. They can buy from food trucks (Not all of which are regulated, price level enforced…) Or they can brown bag their lunches.
For similar reasons we can doubt that many low-wage workers will be able to get jobs at California fast food restaurants. Recalls a quip from the Great Depression, “A good job, if you can get one.”
Thinking ahead, this shifts money from some hands to other hands. I doubt it will have much inflationary effect.
I would quit. Same for being vaccinated. No. Not doing either. I was actually hoping they would fire me. I was only working to fix a situation that I care about. Fire me I do not care. Wasn’t working for a paycheck. They were suppose to fire me for being unvaccinated. Never did…meh.
Just be thankful that you are also a pureblood. Saw my dentist on Wednesday and he was only seeing a limited number of patients as his cardiologist told him he needs to rest in bed as he has heart damage. And yes the cardiologist told him the jab caused it. I’m supposed to get a dental implant in 6 months and I’m not even that confident that the guy will be working at all, and perhaps he might be another case of thuddenly.
My wife’s dentist sent out an email to everyone in her client database that they require proof of the vaxx in order to take you for an appointment. Needless to say, she’s never going back. My dentist never even mentioned it. The only concession his office made was to have a box of masks out.
Whatever. Im UAW and run huge presses and often work 7 12s for months on end with no day off. These wimps have zero clue. My job can be fairly physical as well. All these ‘union people are lazy’ stories are from decades ago that still hang around and corporate bs propaganda. You come do what I do for a day I promise you’ll know you did something. I invest and save $ from all the overtime which is why I read this blog im not doing this crap forever.
Plenty of new companies that aren’t locked into Massive Real Estate Purchases or leases. If you can’t manage a remote workforce, you shouldn’t be managing any workers.
These companies are struggling because of financial commitments to buildings and Tax Benefits they were granted by cities to locate workers there.
Most Technology Workers have ZERO need to work in an office. They should be coding away somewhere comfortable, not sitting in a Cube getting interrupted by office busybodies who are avoiding their own work by pestering others.
They use Slack or some other internal messaging system to communicate in nearly Real-Time.
This type of job is increasing every year.
Nobody needs to sit their arse in JPM Chase Bank HQto do their jobs. It’s Dinosaurs in Management that don’t know how to manage people well. They did BETTER WF Home on Earnings. Others who don’t try an push antiquated work environments will take market share and top talent.
Way less Real Estate Expenses and Taxes and Utilities for companies with a remote workforce.
You do realize the Biden crime regime is filing various lawsuits against Elon Musk because he allows a measure of free speech on X.
Biden is making a big mistake pissing off Elon imo
Why not file a lawsuit against Biden and bring said evidence to court? Just like Trump’s lawyers did with the “election fraud” oh wait that was just a sham!
I work in Boise Idaho and there are many people that say they will quit if they have to come into the office. Even if is 3 days per week.
In our situation, it is child care that is the main driver of WFH. The other driver is full time employees that were hired out of state and have no way of coming into the office. How can there be a requirement to work in the office when out of state full time employees were hired who live out of state?
What a mess. I find the whole situation less productive.
If you are watching a kid while working, you’re likely not putting in as much effort per day for work as you would in an office.
Less meetings, no commute, don’t need a full lunch hour. Can do whatever work you want to during those wasted hours of rush hour commute time you don’t need to do.
Put the kids to bed and then get some quality time in the evening.
Happier, not burnt out, don’t need to be out of the kids are sick, don’t waste money on ever more expensive gasoline, eat at home and save money on lunch, coffee, etc.
No need to go into the office unless your job ACTUALLY only is in person.
Cheers
Exactly, vboring.
Much better to be in an office constantly worrying about the kid without being able to know what is really going on until you get home.
What are the legal ramifications for an employer which knowingly hired someone with the agreement that they would WFH and now wants to change the contract?
It isn’t possible for some to now move to a location nearer to work. Besides the disruption to their families such as kids schools or the spouses employment there is also the cost of buying and selling with all the fees, commissions and taxes.
And then some are locked in a super low mortgage and would not qualify for a much higher interest rate mortgage even if they were willing to pay tens of thousands of dollars extra every year in interest.
Plus the number of homes available to buy is low because so many don’t want to give up their low rate mortgage so there might not be any nice homes available and who wants to move from their existing dream home in a nice neighbourhood to an ugly fixer upper in an unappealing suburb.
The employer can generally do whatever they want. Employment is at will, meaning an employer has the legal right to switch the working arrangements of their employees at any time.
If a worker wants to help their chance’s, that a job they’re taking remains remote or hybrid for the long term, their best protection is a “Legally Binding” separate Employee Contract (still may not work depending on your State).
Things have changed a lot, so some employers may consider something today, that they wouldn’t have considered years ago.
Being a fairly new idea, but becoming more mainstream as things in the economy change, it’s really on a case by case basis still, but changing in some States. Most companies are pretty fair about it, as they risk losing more employees if they are not fair.
Good Luck!
This has been going on since time immemorial.
“The Company is moving it’s headquarters, do you want to relocate or do you want a severance package?”
Working From Home does NOT include taking care of children during work time. I think this is one of the reasons employers are mandating return to the office.
Sure it does.
Most kids are at school until 3pm-ish.
From 3pm to 6pm a couple that WFH can split up the time. 1.5 hours each, IF needed. Many kids are doing homework and then dinner.
They start early instead of commuting…an extra hour and a half per day of work for each way of the commute. Then the parents can go back to work after the kids are put to bed.
My friends have kids and from 6pm to 8pm he’s not available for dinner and kid time.
Then he works until 10pm or later. He starts EARLY and finishes late but gets time with the kids for dinner.
His wife is with the kids from 3pm-ish until 6pm, they have dinner together and then she works for a couple hours after dinner.
They can take anytime off during the day that they need and still out in a full day’s work.
It’s not how I would do it, because I don’t have kids to worry about…but they love the flexibility and are BOTH crushing it professionally and get to spend time with their young kids every day.
They work with people all over the country and around the world, so they wouldn’t even be in the same office with the people they work with the most.
Save TONS of money on Childcare and not having to drive a grueling distance during rush hour.
Cheers!
It appears to me that child care would be only an incremental expense covering commute time. Wouldn’t you still require child care during working hours? Or are you planning to be playing with your kiddies during the time that your employer expects you to be doing productive work?
layoff by another name.
The company does not have to file notice with the state 45 days prior to a mass layoff. An employee who is fired due to insubordination, ( not reporting to the office for work when required by the employer is insubordination) receives no unemployment insurance payment, so the company rating is unaffected. The company certainly won’t give an employee who quits or is fired a severance package. The company does risk losing better employees to competitors or retirement.
Given the pros and cons, I believe a sharp, sudden economic slowdown is about to be reported, and companies need to preserve cash.
Agreed.
To each their own as far as I am concerned, but I was never a fan of such. I like getting up and getting our and about. Plan my day on the ride in, and review it on the ride home. I like to Be Home when I am, and always refused laptops and such as ways to slowly get you doing so, without even asking.
All situations are unique, but for me distractions would not allow me to be principled enough to separate as they should be IMO. I could see over time dressing down, not shaving, eating unhealthy just for starters, but that would be me…
I do think 4 day / 10 hour days in the right industries, is a no brainer. For morale, for convenience, for cost savings, and ALL for the employee, and with no added cost to merit not doing so, that I can see (or did).
I do think it has had massive ramifications in CRE, Rents, restaurants, housing, Company support services, gas stations, daycare, and the likes. It does not appear that any of that was thought out in advance, and has been a big unforeseen downfall by the looks of it anyway…
Good points, but living in DC I spend 90 minutes a day commuting, that’s 7.5 hours a week, same thing as working a six day week but a lot more stressful.
In a couple of weeks I get to work from home 4 days a week. If I didn’t get that I’d be looking for another job.
At home I have a better chair, better desk, better monitors, it’s quiet (no more open office crap) and if I need a break I can take a break (nap, run, or swim), as if it was possible to code 8 hours straight every day. All of those make me literally three times more productive.
The Type of Work has change for many, many people over the last 10 years…now it makes more sense to work in environments where you get stuff done. I still like being “out and about” but just being in an Office doesn’t make me more productive. I have plenty of meetings I attend over Zoom that get stuff done. I also attend events three or four times a week, plus a couple of conferences per year. Plenty of “in person meetings” but mostly remote now.
Cheers!
Most companies WILL give an employee a Severance Package…as the article said several companies would.
They don’t want the legal fees for a wrongful termination suit, etc. Much cheaper and simpler that way.
Last I checked colleagues at IBM (I retired) are good to work from home all the time. I enjoyed WFH but there is a value to co-location. I also believe employers have a right to demand working in the office/plant. That said, it’s obviously a great recruiting tool for those who do accept WFH.
I’ve known/still do know IBM workers
they are type PROFESSIONALS who get jobs done
however many employers want to SEE WHO WORKS FOR THEM
it’s THEIR RIGHT not an employee
then again if employer just stops paying them, cuts off access, sends email saying YOUR FIRED for failure to follow company policy
NLRB has NO RIGHT to anything – accept wrath of we the people who WORK FOR LIVING
Nah, The best Talent will tell the Employer to F.O. and take the job from the other companies that don’t have an ego problem and are always hunting the best talent. Too many employers NOT constrained by poor middle management.
If you’re in the Top 1/3 of employees you have offers coming in from LinkedIn Recruiters every week, if not daily. It costs way more to replace good employees than let them work the way they want.
Middle Manager crybabies not withstanding.
Depends on what you mean by the top third. I’d say it’s probably more like the top 5 or 10% at the most, as defined by hard to hire or hard to learn skills. Now, if someone has the discipline to learn data science, AI, the C programming language, etc. then they probably have Asperger’s type of personalities and they may do as well or better in a remoter work setup where their daily interaction with colleagues is minimal. But for the majority of people, they do not do as well in WFH environments. Having said that, it’s a great option to have and employers should be flexible (and most are) when employees have doctors appointments, soccer games, school meetings and so forth. Or let’s say you break your ankle and want to heal at home while working remote for a couple of weeks. That’s fine. But we are social animals. We are not designed to work alone all day every day.
Nah Bruh,
Do a quick check on how many people play Online Multiplayer Video Games. It’s like almost TWO BILLION people.
Plenty of people do not need to be at work with people they may or may not like. If you’re involved in knowledge work most people concentrate better in an environment THEY like, rather than the “cube farms” or “open interruptions office floor plans”.
I own my own companies, all my team works remotely, since 2019 (we just lucked out on CV19 timing)…and they get stuff done! We deal with hundreds of other companies, many of which have an office but most have WF Anywhere policies. They’re mostly fast growing companies that are owned by their original founders and deal with Middle Market Companies and some Enterprise Companies because they are more agile and can do things the slower moving Big Corporations can’t. They’re the future…not making people commute for hours, 5 days a week to sit on a Computer all day.
Manufacturing and Restaurants and othe things where you have to physically be there are not what we’re talking about.
Cheers
Big fallacy.
We are all NOT social animals.
This is true.
After all it only takes about 2 years to integrate a professional level employee into the organizational structure with sufficient mutual trust.
you’re spot on – ie those with SKILLS and no baggage
like family, political ideals, etc.
I speak about the 2/3rds
who can’t figure out how to live within their means
Says someone on the cusp of replacement by AI. Just a supposition, but if you are not on site on a project, it is your intellect you are selling and that is becoming scary inexpensive.
I retired after 38 years in IT, mainly utilizing IBM midrange equipment, and I had a lot of contact with IBMers over the years. There were very few paycheck collecting drones in their ranks. I don’t know if that remains the case today, IBM is a shadow of what it once was.
“THINK”
Bad news for house prices in cities people fled to during the pandemic, assuming their roles would be remote forever.
Looking at you, Denver and Sacramento suburbs.
Will be interesting to see how lower interest rate mortgages when they moved during the pandemic and cheaper rents in big cities affect things now. .
Have you considered posting quits by sector as a percentage of labor pool by sector? It would be interesting to see long term trends, since I’m guessing that the absolute number of people in each sector has fluctuated a lot over time due to pandemic disruption, but maybe I am wrong. The three to six million additional illegal immigrants each year have to be getting jobs somewhere and I’m not seeing what sector they are flowing into from your chart.
Illegal immigrants by the very nature of being illegal won’t be showing up in legal job statistics.
Most of them work in labor jobs like construction, farming, lawn maintenance, wait staff, maids etc.
I think you forgot to mention truck driving, particularly short haul (distribution, construction service, etc.) driving.
Anyone who assumed that the workplace would remain permanently remote after the COVID madness waned is hopelessly naive and/or incredibly stupid (no mutual exclusivity implied). I knew from the moment those policies were put into place that businesses would ultimately realize that the nearly complete inability to monitor and control (i.e., “manage”) their workforce would be to the business’ immense disadvantage. Sure, there are typically a few employees that a business can (or possibly even should) grant a great deal of autonomy, but that is not true of most of the working masses, who appear to show less and less motivation as time progresses (and, before someone chimes in with the obvious unreasoned opinion, the answer to inceasing motivation among those employees is far more complex than merely allowing them to work from home). I was actually astounded that the inevitable consequences took as long to play out as they did. To me, that does not indicate much acuity on the part of management today, but, while related, that is a somewhat different issue.
As folks return to the office they may notice that the ranks of management above them have thinned a bit. That will hold for almost all levels.