Getting America
Back to Work

Americans have been living through a period of intense uncertainty since March 2020 — struggling with an unprecedented pandemic and the economic distress it has caused.

 

To provide some clarity on the issues facing American businesses, Kastle is tracking access activity data from KastlePresence app, keycard, and fob usage in the 2,600 buildings and 41,000 businesses we secure across 47 states. We’re analyzing the anonymized data to identify trends in how Americans are returning to the office.
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Get Weekly UpdatesYou can now track the Return to Work Barometer on the Bloomberg Terminal, available under {ALLX KASL<GO>}

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Hybrid work patterns reveal occupancy varies throughout the week with Tuesdays typically being the highest day of the week and Fridays being the lowest. The chart below tracks Tuesday occupancy over time in ten cities and provides a new dimension to the weekly Barometer report. The Peak Day Hybrid Index will now be published weekly, offering a wider aperture into the full picture of workplace occupancy.

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Tuesday Continues to Be Most Popular In-Office Day

Last week’s office occupancy peaked again on Tuesday at 62.3%, according to Kastle’s 10-City Daily Analysis. Of all 10 cities tracked, Austin, Texas had the highest single day occupancy at 79% on Tuesday. Philadelphia set a new occupancy record at 50.7%, which, while more than 28 points behind Austin, still broke the halfway mark. Friday was the lowest occupancy day at 32.5% of its pre-pandemic level — a nearly 30-point gap from Tuesday’s high. However, the gap from the highest occupancy city to the lowest on Friday is much smaller, from Austin’s 37.3% to New York’s 27.6% occupancy. Friday remains the lowest occupancy day of the week across all 10 cities.

The 10-city average across the whole week was 51.3% occupancy — 0.7 points higher than last week. The increase was led by all three Texas cities bouncing back after experiencing weather disruptions and spring break closures last week, while nearly all other cities experienced slight dips in occupancy.

 

 

Methodology

To provide some clarity on the issues facing American businesses, Kastle has been studying keycard, fob and KastlePresence app access data from the 2,600 buildings and 41,000 businesses we secure across 47 states. We’re analyzing the anonymized data to identify trends in how Americans are returning to the office.

We’re ready to continue helping companies navigate the ever-changing workplace landscape and adjust to the ‘new normal’ of office occupancy. Whether full-time hybrid or in-person, our commitment remains to helping American workers return safely to their office buildings. We have a comprehensive system in place that integrates technology and new safety protocols — both for the building and tenant spaces. We’re keeping a close eye on this data as part of our KastleSafeSpaces framework, which we designed to help office buildings throughout workplace transitions.

Kastle’s reach of buildings, businesses and cardholders secured generates millions of access events daily as users enter office complexes, and individual company workspaces. The Barometer weekly report summarizes access control data among our business partners in ten major metro areas, not a national statistical sample. Charted percentages reflect unique authorized user entries in each market relative to a pre-COVID baseline, averaged weekly.*

*On March 22, 2021, Kastle moved from daily to weekly data reporting to provide a more robust and comprehensive picture of office occupancy. We have also recalculated data back to the start of the time series for consistency. This has only a marginal impact on most cities and the national average.

Click here for more information about the Barometer methodology and FAQ

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