U.K. Urges Workers to Return to Offices: Live Business Updates
The British government has a new message to deliver: It’s safe to return to work.
Starting next week, when schools reopen, the government will begin an ad campaign designed to reassure people that their workplaces have been made safe over the summer and they can return to them with the right health and safety precautions.
“Next week we will showcase the benefits of returning safely to work and raise awareness of companies getting this right,” a government spokesperson said.
The advertisements, to be placed mainly in local and regional media, come amid mounting concern from some business groups that prolonged working from home is seriously harming the economies of town and city centers that rely on commuters.
But many companies don’t want to be seen to be pressuring their employees to return. Recently the British asset management firm Schroders (with about 3,000 employees in Britain) said it would permanently allow flexible working, and the trading company IG (about 750 employees) said none of its staff would be required to return this year, though its office would reopen on Sept. 7.
Across all industries, 40 percent of people said they were working remotely, according to a survey earlier this month by the Office for National Statistics. But in certain sectors — including education, communications and legal services — the share of people working from home jumped to more than three-quarters.
Carolyn Fairbairn, head of the Confederation of British Industry, said that getting people back into offices and workplaces was as essential to the economy as schools reopening. “The costs of office closure are becoming clearer by the day,” she wrote in op-ed published in The Daily Mail on Thursday. “Some of our busiest city centers resemble ghost towns, missing the usual bustle of passing trade.”
Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2020/08/28/business/stock-market-today-coronavirus