Europe is winning the return-to-office fight against the U.S.
European companies are winning the war with their workers when it comes to office attendance.
Rates for office use have climbed steadily on the continent, with the largest companies making the biggest gains, according to a CBRE Group Inc. survey. Just a third of the companies polled now report office-utilization rates of less than 40%, down from almost a half last year, the results show.
Rising office attendance is being driven partly by increased use of return-to-work mandates, with three-quarters of companies now adopting a minimum attendance policy, according to the Dallas-based commercial real estate services firm.
Smaller homes, better public transport and less urban sprawl have helped encourage European workers to return to the office more quickly than those in the US, where attendance levels remain stubbornly lower than before the pandemic. That’s feeding through to markedly different outlooks for the regions’ office markets, with vacancy rates hovering around 20% in several major US metropolitan areas, more than double the 8.4% average in Europe.
| Utilization Rate (% of desk capacity) | 2023 | 2024 |
|---|---|---|
| 0-25% | 11% | 4% |
| 26-40% | 37% | 29% |
| 61-80% | 12% | 14% |
| 81-100% | 3% | 0% |
“Offices are returning to vibrancy and, while many see the current levels of utilization as stable, 30% of companies expect further increases,” Richard Holberton, CBRE’s head of European office research, said in a statement. “The general acceptance of hybrid working is widespread, but the challenge remains of matching employers’ expectations with that of their employees over the long term.”
Almost two-thirds of the largest companies — those with 5,000 employees or more — have utilization rates above 40% in Europe, the survey found. Before the pandemic, offices globally recorded average attendance of 65%, CBRE’s data show.
