Even as Uber employees come back to the office, the Bay Area ridesharing giant is cutting back on office space, putting an entire San Francisco building – close to 300,000 square feet – up for lease.
In a statement, Uber said the move will not change its footprint in the city or impact space for employees and that it is committed to a hybrid work approach.
The result is San Francisco now has a commercial space vacancy rate of 30%.
A survey from San Francisco-based Flex Report says 30% of offices now consider themselves hybrid workplaces and just 42% of workers now come to the office full-time. Professor James Bailey, who studies America's workplaces, calls it a worthwhile compromise but warns about worker privacy at home.
"Your organizations are going to control your lives more carefully and more closely when you work at home than when you work at the office," he said. "They're going to have that camera on you every second of the time."
Meanwhile, small businesses near Uber that depend on office workers say hybrid is not enough.
"We need them to work like before, five days a week, so we can pay our employees, our rent, our expenses," X said.
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