Sydney office workers slowest in Australia to return to office

Sydney has emerged as the slowest Australian capital to return to pre-Covid foot traffic — although there’s one daily timeslot in which it is bustling with more activity than ever. FIND OUT WHEN

Sydney workers are cooling their heels when it comes to getting back behind their desks, with their return to office rate lagging behind every other major Australian city.

New data commissioned by the Tourism and Transport Forum reveals that Sydneysiders’ addiction to working from home shows little sign of abating, with worker foot traffic on a weekday in Sydney in April sitting at just 64 per cent of pre-pandemic levels.

While that’s up from 54 per cent last year, it’s still well behind Perth at 87 per cent and falls just short of Melbourne at 65 per cent.

However one area where Sydney is seeing a surprise boost is the early hours of the morning, both on weekends and during the week.

The number of people in the CBD from 4am-6am on the weekend is at 122 per cent of pre-pandemic levels.

Morning peak hour traffic heading in and out of the Sydney CBD from North Sydney. Picture: Damian Shaw

From 3am-5am during the week, visitation is at 119 per cent.

A combination of tradies coming into the city for night works and people still enjoying licensed venues until the early hours is thought to be behind the boost.

The total number of people visiting and working in the CBD on average is at 77 per cent, up from 67 per cent last year.

The data comes as many organisations — and CBD retailers — continue to push for workers to return to the nine-to-five.

The Commonwealth Bank just this week ordered staff to return to physically working from the office at least 50 per cent of the time from July.

Tourism and Transport Forum CEO Margy Osmond. Picture: Jonathan Ng

In other good news for the city, however, with the data from the Tourism and Transport Forum showing weekend visitation has completely recovered, with foot traffic at 100 per cent of pre-pandemic levels.

Tourism and Transport Forum CEO Margy Osmond said current strategies to get more weekend visitors were clearly working, but more needed to be done to entice workers during the week.

“It’s a clear indication of a new normal that hybrid workers will be a critical makeup of the city, but how can we entice them back,” she said.

“If you make the CBD the exciting, vibrant, vibey place it should be, workers are more likely to return.”

Ms Osmond said big events like World Pride and Vivid were working to bring in visitors, but more investment was needed in hospitality and arts during the week.

“There’s no doubt at all that the major events strategy for Sydney is working … we need more of that to give workers a reason to come back to the city.”

Vivid and other major events have helped boost weekend visits to Sydney’s CBD.

Business Sydney executive director Paul Nicolaou said Mondays and Fridays were still seen as work-from-home days by many workers.

“Sydney is still a part-time city … if we are going to remain an international city we need to be full-time 24/7, seven days a week,” he said.

Mr Nicolaou said cafes, restaurants, hairdressers and florists were starting to close on Mondays without the foot traffic to keep the tills full.

“We are slowly getting there, we will get there eventually and it’s important the next generation of business leaders come in and gain the experience, knowledge and skills that they can’t get online.”

Originally published as Sydney office workers slowest in Australia to return to office