Covid won’t kill the office

The rapidity and willingness with which workers have adopted and adapted to remote working has led some – including Rory Sutherland in this week’s Spectator – to hail a home-working revolution. But there are convincing reasons why the office won’t be another Covid casualty.

First, while it is not inconceivable that coronavirus could accelerate the pre-existing home working trend for office workers, it is bordering on Panglossian to think that we could broaden this out to most people in Britain. 

Recent research from the Institute of Economic Affairs has revealed that headline statistics on full-time home workers are misleading. The bulk of the 13.7 per cent of the labour force classified in this way are working from home rather than at home. Two-thirds of these people are self-employed and use their residence as an office base: they’re builders, plumbers, electricians, cleaners. They normally go out to serve clients and customers from this base, and could do virtually nothing under lockdown.