San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie is mandating city employees to return to the office four days a week, joining a growing trend among major employers seeking to revitalize a downtown area struggling with high office vacancy rates due to the rise of remote work, Bloomberg reports.
In a memo obtained by the news agency, Mayor Lurie stated that “increased in-office presence provides critical operational benefits to the City as an employer, as well as in its primary mission in serving the public.”
The directive primarily targets the some 30% of San Francisco city workers who currently work from offices about three days a week, including those in positions related to information technology, accounting, and legal services. Essential city services like police and firefighting already require full-time in-person presence.
Mayor Lurie, a political newcomer who assumed office last month, is taking a more assertive approach than the state of California, which requires state employees to be in the office only two days a week. Los Angeles, the state’s largest city, does not have a general in-office mandate for its employees.
This move is likely to be one of Mayor Lurie’s most contentious efforts to revitalize San Francisco, which has one of the highest office-vacancy rates in the nation. The city’s slow recovery from the pandemic has negatively impacted local businesses and contributed to an estimated $876 million budget shortfall over the next two years.
However, major Bay Area companies have increasingly been requiring their employees to return to in-office work. San Francisco-based Gap Inc., for example, announced its intention to bring corporate staff back five days a week by September. The Trump administration’s mandate for federal employees to return to offices is also expected to increase the number of workers in the downtown area.
The mandate, set to take effect on April 28, could face resistance from city workers and the unions that represent them. Mayor Lurie’s memo indicated that the city’s human resources department will be engaging in discussions with unions regarding the changes.
