Pendulum Swinging Back Towards In-Office

While the pendulum is swinging away from remote work and back towards in-office, the Bay Area still “lags significantly behind” almost all other major metro regions. The national average is 32.2% fewer office visits in March 2025 compared to March 2019, pre-pandemic, but San Francisco is tied in last place with Chicago at 44.6%.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, which cities are in-office the most? NYC is #1 (only down 11.4% from pre-pandemic levels). The next five are: Miami (down 17.3%), Atlanta (29.3%), DC (30.6%), Dallas (30.7%), and Houston (31.0%).

While San Francisco is last returning to office over the last five years, the story is different if you look at just the last year. From March 2024 to March 2025, SF experienced the third-highest growth of in-office visits. At 9.6% growth, it trails only DC (9.8%) and Boston (10.2%).

Fueling the rise in SF over the last year, multiple major employers have mandated employees return to office. Examples include SF city workers, Salesforce (the city’s largest private employer), and Gap Inc. (starting September). Just this past week Google has been in the news for “demanding that some remote employees return to the office if they want to keep their jobs and avoid being part of broader cost cuts at the company.”

How much more will the pendulum swing? It’ll depend on how much leverage employers have over their workers in the job market, which looks unlikely to recover fully any time soon.