Staff ‘only plan to be in the office twice a week’ after lockdown restrictions end, MPs are told

Home-working is here to stay after the pandemic, with staff saying they plan to spend no more than two days a week in the office, MPs have been told.

Consultants Deloitte said coronavirus would cause a ‘step change’ which will have a dramatic effect on the future of city centres. And the CBI told the Commons treasury committee that businesses are thinking of keeping just 70 per cent of their office space because so many staff would be working from home.

Paul Johnson of the Institute for Fiscal Studies said among the over 50s, ‘about 8 per cent of them say they now expect to retire later’ because working from home makes life much more straightforward.

The hospitality industry is concerned that if staff stay away it will have a devastating effect on city centre pubs, restaurants, cafes and coffee shops.

Ian Stewart, chief economist at Deloitte, said: ‘It is going to be a step change. There has been a long-term move towards greater home working. This is going to cause a significant acceleration of it.’

Rain Newton-Smith, chief economist at the CBI, said there was a move to hybrid working in the 40 per cent of the economy where it was relatively easy to work from home thanks to the internet.

‘Businesses are talking about maybe needing 70 per cent of original office space capacity,’ she said.

‘This puts a premium on urban regeneration in particular and if you think about ‘levelling up’ what we do know is that some of our city centres – Manchester, Birmingham, London – which have faced some of the greatest challenges through losing commuters, students and international tourism all in one go.

‘We need to think about how we recover from that; how we help city centres regenerate.’