Wed, April 24, 2024 at 9:35 AM EDT
Business
More people are heading back to the workplace, but that doesn't mean they all like it – CBC News
Career consultant Sweta Regmi remembers the days when working from home was unfathomable to her.
If you had asked her years ago, when she was employed at a call centre, Regmi would have had a question of her own for you.
“Are you crazy?” Regmi, founder and CEO of Teachndo Career Consultancy in Sudbury, Ont., said, laughing at the distant memory.
But that was then — not today, when even her former colleagues at the call centre have been working from home amid a pandemic-era pivot toward more flexible work.
Yet the proportion of Canadians who are working from home most of the time is decreasing, as the protective lid of public health restrictions is pulled back and businesses grow more confident about bringing their people back to the office.
That’s setting up tension with those employees who don’t want to go back to the way things were — but who will have to adjust if that’s what they must do.
A shifting landscape?
Statistics Canada reports that nearly one in five employed Canadians were still doing most of their work from home as of May.
That sounds like a lot, but it’s down from more than 24 per cent in January — and well down from what was reported during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Ruel Tria has been working at home for more than two years. For him, the arrangement is just fine.
“Our business allows that,” said Tria, an operations supervisor who did all of his work in a Toronto office prior to the pandemic.
But that could change, as his workplace has sent out surveys asking about potential concerns employees might have about returning to the office.
Tria has been saving money while working at home, as well as the time he used to spend commuting.
“My concern is obviously the rising fuel costs,” Tria said, noting that’s just one cost that’s making the lives of commuters more expensive.
Nita Chhinzer, an associate professor of human resources in the department of management at the University of Guelph in southwestern Ontario, said there are various reasons employees are not keen on returning to the office — not all of them strictly financial in nature.
WATCH | Varying attitudes on heading back to the office:
Nita Chhinzer, an associate professor of human resources at the University of Guelph, talks to CBC’s Canada Tonight about issues employers are wrestling with as they try to bring staff back to the office after an extended period of working from home during the pandemic.
“Maybe someone moved away from the city, or maybe they sold the car, or maybe they don’t want to do the commute anymore, or maybe they’re realizing that the work politics and drama isn’t of interest to them anymore,” Chhinzer told CBC’s Canada Tonight on Friday.
Beyond that, she said, there are varying views among people on what works best for them — including those who want to be back in the office more regularly — and that’s something employers have to wrestle with.
“The challenge for employers today is: How do they provide that flexibility but still create an environment where they can bring people together and kind of recreate the pulse of the workplace?” Chhinzer said.
People aren’t where they used to be
Cities are also feeling the effects of seeing fewer people make the trek into the office.
In Toronto, the return to the office has lagged and foot traffic in the downtown office core remains far below pre-pandemic levels.
Marcy Burchfield, vice-president of the Toronto Region Board of Trade’s Economic Blueprint Institute, said the lengthy pandemic restrictions the city faced have shaped its rate of recovery.
“People across the Toronto region, they worked remotely for prolonged periods of times,” Burchfield said.
“There’s a direct relationship between how long a jurisdiction was locked down and the return of office trajectory. And Toronto is a perfect example of that.”
And that trajectory could remain slower than some businesses would like: Mark Rose, chief executive of the commercial real estate firm Avison Young, told the Globe and Mail this past week that a full, across-the-board return to the office is likely five years away.
Flexibility a key draw for some
Out on the East Coast, Paige Black is working in a new job that she specifically sought out because of the flexibility it offers in allowing her to work from home in Dartmouth, N.S.
She left her last job because that option was no longer going to be available in the same way.
WATCH | Not everyone wants to go back:
One in three Canadians say they would consider looking for a new job if their employer forced them back into the office and nearly a quarter would quit immediately, a new CBC News and Angus Reid survey suggests.
Like Tria, Black used to work in an office before the pandemic. The non-profit professional admits she “wasn’t a huge fan” of working from home, at least initially.
But she soon found that more flexible work offered many advantages, including more control over her day-to-day life.
“I felt like I got more of my time back,” she said.
For Black and many others, that kind of flexibility is hard to beat.
“Nobody can put a price tag on flexibility,” said Regmi, the career consultant, summing up its worth to workers. “That’s priceless.”
Embracing flexibility
At some larger organizations in Canada, there’s a recognition that flexibility is here to stay — and they’re focusing on what they need to do to support that.
At the Canada Life Assurance Company, for instance, the organization is aiming to support both its people and a range of working styles.
“Our approach to returning to the office is one that empowers our 11,000 employees to do their best work — wherever they are,” Colleen Bailey Moffitt, the company’s senior vice-president of human resources, said in an emailed statement.
Bailey Moffitt said Canada Life is “committed to supporting a hybrid, flexible way of working” and recognizes its teams and people have varying needs. It permits leaders to decide “which work style fits best for their team.”
But the insurance giant has also taken steps to make sure its various campuses and offices are welcoming to staff and fully equipped for their in-person work. And it has invested in those spaces over the past two years, including modernizing its meeting rooms and common spaces.
Other large employers have made similar investments to facilities over the course of the pandemic, as the changing long-term needs of their businesses have become apparent.
The federal government has also paid attention to the broader shift in how people — including its own public servants — are working.
“During the COVID-19 pandemic, federal public servants proved their ability to adapt to new ways of working both on-site and remotely while delivering results for Canadians,” the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat said in a statement.
The board said it does not have government-wide data available on the proportion of federal servants working on-site versus a remote setup, but it said “more and more employees are making their way into work sites on a regular basis.”
The experience of the past two-plus years will help guide the government in developing “flexible, hybrid workforce models as part of how and where public servants work in the future,” the board said.
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Oil companies planning to ship crude on the expanded Trans Mountain pipeline in Canada are concerned that the project may not begin full service on May 1 but they would be nevertheless obligated to pay tolls from that date.
In a letter to the Canada Energy Regulator (CER), Suncor Energy and other shippers including BP and Marathon Petroleum have expressed doubts that Trans Mountain will start full service on May 1, as previously communicated, Reuters reports.
Trans Mountain Corporation, the government-owned entity that completed the pipeline construction, told Reuters in an email that line fill on the expanded pipeline would be completed in early May.
After a series of delays, cost overruns, and legal challenges, the expanded Trans Mountain oil pipeline will open for business on May 1, the company said early this month.
“The Commencement Date for commercial operation of the expanded system will be May 1, 2024. Trans Mountain anticipates providing service for all contracted volumes in the month of May,” Trans Mountain Corporation said in early April.
The expanded pipeline will triple the capacity of the original pipeline to 890,000 barrels per day (bpd) from 300,000 bpd to carry crude from Alberta’s oil sands to British Columbia on the Pacific Coast.
The Federal Government of Canada bought the Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion (TMX) from Kinder Morgan back in 2018, together with related pipeline and terminal assets. That cost the federal government $3.3 billion (C$4.5 billion) at the time. Since then, the costs for the expansion of the pipeline have quadrupled to nearly $23 billion (C$30.9 billion).
The expansion project has faced continuous delays over the years. In one of the latest roadblocks in December, the Canadian regulator denied a variance request from the project developer to move a small section of the pipeline due to challenging drilling conditions.
The company asked the regulator to reconsider its decision, and received on January 12 a conditional approval, avoiding what could have been another two-year delay to start-up.
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Tesla profits slump by more than a half
Tesla has announced its profits fell sharply in the first three months of the year to $1.13bn (£910m), compared with $2.51bn in 2023.
It caps a difficult period for the electric vehicle (EV) maker, which – faced with falling sales – has announced thousands of job cuts.
Boss Elon Musk remains bullish about its prospects, telling investors the launch of new models would be brought forward.
Its share price has risen but analysts say it continues to face significant challenges, including from lower-cost rivals.
The company has suffered from falling demand and competition from cheaper Chinese imports which has led its stock price to collapse by 43% over 2024.
Figures for the first quarter of 2024 revealed revenues of $21.3bn, down on analysts’ predictions of just over $22bn.
But the decision by Tesla to bring forward the launch of new models from the second half of 2025 boosted its shares by nearly 12.5% in after-hours trading.
It did not reveal pricing details for the new vehicles.
However Mr Musk made clear he also grander ambitions, touting Tesla’s AI credentials and plans for self-driving vehicles – even going as far as to say considering it to be just a car company was the “wrong framework.”
“If somebody doesn’t believe Tesla is going to solve autonomy I think they should not be an investor,” he said.
Such sentiments have been questioned by analysts though, with Deutsche Bank saying driverless cars face “technological, regulatory and operational challenges.”
Some investors have called for the company to instead focus on releasing a lower price, mass-market EV.
However, Tesla has already been on a charm offensive, trying to win over new customers by dropping its prices in a series of markets in the face of falling sales.
It also said its situation was not unique.
“Global EV sales continue to be under pressure as many carmakers prioritize hybrids over EVs,” it said.
Despite plans to bring forward new models originally planned for next year the firm is cutting its workforce.
Tesla said it would lose 3,332 jobs in California and 2,688 positions in Texas, starting mid-June.
The cuts in Texas represent 12% of Tesla’s total workforce of almost 23,000 in the area where its gigafactory and headquarters are located.
However, Mr Musk sought to downplay the move.
“Tesla has now created over 30,000 manufacturing jobs in California!” he said in a post on his social media platform X, formerly Twitter, on Tuesday.
Another 285 jobs will be lost in New York.
Tesla’s total workforce stood at more than 140,000 late last year, up from around 100,000 at the end of 2021, according to the company’s filings with US regulators.
Musk’s salary
The car firm is also facing other issues, with a struggle over Mr Musk’s compensation still raging on.
On Wednesday, Tesla asked shareholders to vote for a proposal to accept Mr Musk’s compensation package – once valued at $56bn – which had been rejected by a Delaware judge.
The judge found Tesla’s directors had breached their fiduciary duty to the firm by awarding Mr Musk the pay-out.
Due to the fall in Tesla’s stock value, the compensation package is now estimated to be around $10bn less – but still greater than the GDP of many countries.
In addition, Tesla wants its shareholders to agree to the firm being moved from Delaware to Texas – which Mr Musk called for after the judge rejected his payday.
Business
Stock market today: Nasdaq futures pop, Tesla surges after earnings with more heavyweights on deck
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Tech stocks rose on Wednesday, outstripping the broader market as investors welcomed Tesla’s (TSLA) cheaper car pledge and waited for the next rush of corporate earnings.
The Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) rose roughly 0.6%, coming off a sharp closing gain. The S&P 500 (^GSPC) was up 0.2%, continuing a rebound from its longest losing streak of 2024, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) fell 0.1%.
Tesla shares jumped nearly 12% after the EV maker’s vow to speed up the launch of more affordable models eclipsed its quarterly earnings and revenue miss. That cheered up investors worried about growth amid a strategy shift to robotaxis and the planned cancellation of a cheaper model.
The results from the first “Magnificent Seven” to report have intensified the already high hopes for Big Tech earnings, that the megacaps can revive the rally in stocks they powered. The spotlight is now on Meta’s (META) report due after the market close, as the Facebook owner’s shares rose after the Senate voted for a potential ban on rival TikTok. Microsoft (MSFT) and Alphabet (GOOG) next up on Thursday.
Meanwhile, Boeing (BA) reported better than expected first quarter results before the opening bell with a loss per share of $1.13, narrower than the $1.72 estimated by Wall Street. Shares rose about 2% in morning trade.
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