[therobots927]

Try to stay optimistic. There are market forces in favor of remote work:

1) Employers who allow remote work will have lower office costs

2) Employers who allow remote will be able to poach employees from competitors who do not offer remote work

These are both strong incentives for employers to allow remote work. Obviously not all do, but over time employers who allow remote work will outperform their peers due to the two reasons above, which can help encourage other employers to allow it in order to stay competitive.

[rty32]

For (1) , that ship has sailed for any company that actually owns their offices -- and there are a ton of them. Unless they sell the property, which many never will for as long as company is in a good financial state, one desk not utilized is money thrown in the water.

(Interestingly Charles Schwab is a notable counterexample -- they were forcing people back into office, until the company's finance is in a bad shape, and they rushed to halt that and actually closed down many offices.)

[tomoyoirl]

How big a trend is that, though? Most companies are all too happy to do a capitalism and move office expenses into OpEx, to improve their return on capital by being a pure-play widget company instead of a hybrid widgets / real estate development and holding corporation.

Sure, there are some big sprawling HQs of the gigacorps who just can’t find enough space to rent otherwise, but that seems to be a minority of office employment to me?

[miki123211]

And don't forget about:

3) Employers who are fully remote (as opposed to even 1 day per month in office) can hire in different locations. For many roles, you can find great employees in places like Eastern Europe for far cheaper than in Silicon Valley, for example.

[rty32]

It could work against you as a US worker. They would set up branches in Europe (and other places) and just hire there, instead of having headcounts in the US.

Just look at Google.

[miki123211]

Why do you (wrongly) assume that everybody commenting on HN lives in the US?

[zinodaur]

My remote company has been doing this. Layoffs in NA and EU, hiring frenzy in Poland

[therobots927]

Yes that’s also true. And it’s already happening.