Since mid-January, there’s been an uptick nationwide of people heading back to workspaces.
The numbers curated from electronic badges being swiped coincide roughly with Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration on Jan. 20 and his team’s subsequent mandate that federal workers return to the office five days a week, similar to corporate-led initiatives nationwide.
Kastle Systems’ “Back-to-Work Barometer” measures badge swipes weekly, comparing current occupancy levels with pre-pandemic levels in 10 major cities. The data baseline is February 2020, before Covid-19 closed workplaces globally.
More workers have returned to their place of employment since May 2023, but the pace has bumped up again in recent months, according to data provided by the Virginia-based security company.
The weekly national average occupancy rate of 54.5% reached a post-pandemic high March 5, according to the latest available figures. That’s the highest occupancy rate since March 11, 2020, about a week before the pandemic began, and when the Kastle reported a national average of 92.4%.
In the Los Angeles region, the average occupancy rate was 97% in March 2020, but quickly fell in line with national averages. At 49.3% as of March 12, the occupancy rate is near its post-pandemic peak hit in the past five years and has steadily grown by nearly a third from its 37.6% occupancy rate in Los Angeles on Jan. 15, 2025.
Commercial brokerages see stabilization in the office market, but the pandemic’s impact continues to linger, despite renewed efforts to get workers to return. While the sector may never fully recover to pre-pandemic times, here’s what the commercial office market currently looks like:
— Orange County saw a 17.2% vacancy rate for office space in 2024 — about flat with 17.3% in 2023, according to JLL.
— In Los Angeles, the vacancy rate totaled 28.4% in 2024, higher than the 23.9% seen in 2023.
— In the Inland Empire, the vacancy rate fell to 9.2% in 2024 from 9.5% in 2023.
