Only a fraction of employees who began working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic have returned to full-time office work, and that has ramifications for everything from how workplaces are run to where we live — and whether the small businesses that surround office buildings survive.
Nearly three-quarters of the 3.4 million Canadians who began working from home at the start of the crisis were still working remotely in August, according to Labour Force Survey data released by Statistics Canada on Friday.
And another survey suggests many of those new remote employees would like to continue working from home indefinitely.
That research, conducted by Maru/Blue on behalf of ADP Canada, found that 45 per cent of survey respondents would prefer to work remotely at least three days a week. Another 15 per cent would like to work remotely one or two days a week.
“It seems remote work is here to stay, or at least the majority of us want it to be,” said Heather Haslam, vice-president of marketing at ADP Canada, a human resources company.
That’s in part because of fear of the virus itself, the survey found. Of the 12 per cent who said they were anxious about returning to their former work locations, 56 per cent said they were worried about contracting the novel coronavirus.
Another 13 per cent said they didn’t know how they could meet their COVID-era family responsibilities while working outside of the home — things like caring for elderly family members or children whose schools could close if there’s an outbreak, Haslam said.
A future of more flexible work?
The survey also found that young people were more likely to believe that the pendulum is swinging permanently in favour of flexible work. Forty-four per cent of respondents aged 18 to 34 said they believe their employers will implement more flexible policies within the next five years, including flextime and remote work; 28 per cent said they believe most people will work remotely by then.
The online survey of 1,538 Canadians working full and part time was completed between Aug. 10 and 20. The comparable margin of error for this study was +/-2.4 percentage points, 19 times out 20.
Canadians are enjoying the last summer long weekend, but not all of them are abiding by COVID-19 safety protocols, especially young people. Experts predict a spike in cases following Labour Day gatherings. 3:21
Sandy Mangat is among the millennial workers who strongly favour flexible work — all the more so since being able to work from home during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I actually started at my current company, Charli.ai, at the beginning of the pandemic. I was in our WeWork office for a day before we went totally remote,” said Mangat, who’s vice-president of growth for the Vancouver-based startup.
In the past, Mangat said, she’s held jobs that involved time-consuming commutes.
“I’ve worked 100 per cent in the office before, which after a while wears on you because, at that time, I had a 45-minute commute into the office and an hour-and-a-half commute back.”
Although her company has since acquired some permanent office space, it’s allowing staff to continue to work from home, only coming in if they have compelling reasons to do so. But Mangat expects she’ll keep her office days to a minimum.
“I’m pretty happy working from home, being able to squeeze in a workout, catch up with a friend or run an errand,” she said.
“In general, I just feel like I’m taking better care of myself. I’m eating more consistent meals…. I feel like I’m focused more on my health and wellness because you have more control over that in your own space.”
Mangat, vice-president of growth at Vancouver startup Charli.ai, wants to continue working mostly from home for the foreseeable future. (Submitted by Sandy Mangat)
There are some tasks that would come together quickly if everyone she needed to collaborate with could be in the same room, Mangat said. “But for a lot of my day-to-day work, I am 10 times more productive if I am at home because I have a lot more control over the distractions.
“In the office, you don’t always have control over that because someone wants to come over and talk to you, and it would be rude not to. So you lose maybe an hour of work a day because you’re chitchatting.”
Mangat said she also notices she’s spending far less money since working from home full time.
“I used to get my hair blown out every so often. Upkeep on manicures and pedicures. Buying clothes for the office. Buying the expensive latte in the morning because you ran out of time at home. Lunches,” she said.
“I’ve significantly reduced my spending on so many fronts because I’m spending more time at home, and I value different things because of it.” Her money is going to things like an ergonomic setup for her home, for instance.
Local business fallout
That’s great for individuals who are able to cut their spending while remaining gainfully employed but devastating to the businesses that are built up around workplaces — from the cobblers and dry cleaners in the lower levels of office buildings to the pubs where people eat lunch or gather for pints after work.
Larry Isaacs, president of the Firkin Group of Pubs, said the pandemic has been “disastrous” for the chain of 30 pubs, some owned by franchisees.
Many of its locations are in areas densely packed with office workers, and those customers are dearly missed, he said.
The pandemic has been devastating to the businesses that are built up around workplaces, including pubs where people eat lunch or gather for pints after work. Warm weather provided a boost to revenues as patios opened up, but colder weather will bring a return to indoor dining restricted by physically distancing. (Submitted by The Auld Spot)
Warm weather is allowing for some patio revenue to trickle in, but with cooler fall and winter ahead, they’ll be relying solely on inside dining and muddling through without work crowds.
“There’s no Christmas parties, there’s no cocktail parties, no lunch parties, so where is the revenue going to be driven from throughout the winter when all these people are working from home?”
By the looks of things, office numbers won’t return to previous levels any time in the near future.
Emily Brine, interim chief talent officer of accounting firm KPMG Canada, said the company will be bringing a maximum of 20 per cent of its 8,000 workers back to their offices across the country in the coming months — less in places like Toronto, where 20 per cent would be above maximum group sizes allowed by public health.
“More broadly speaking, we’ve had far more appeal from our employee base to work from home than to go to the office,” she said.
That’s leading to conversations about how much office space the company will need going forward, and what kind.
“Do we have hoteling space versus broader collaboration space, more white boards, less office cubicle space?” Brine said. “Many organizations and certainly a lot of our clients are talking about this as well.”
That fits with findings by the Canadian Chamber of Commerce as well.
“We asked our national working group on workforce strategies about this — to consult our members and different stakeholders on this — about returning to work and also about child care,” said Trevin Stratton, chief economist and vice-president of policy for the business advocacy and service organization.
“Most, if they can, are continuing to work from home through the autumn and the coming months, as they make longer-term plans and also as they wait to see data on a second wave as well.”
Puja Shah, left, and Jinesh Sheth were looking for a two-bedroom condo in downtown Toronto before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and they found themselves working in tight quarters while working from their apartment. (John Lesavage/CBC News)
The quest for more space
But as the months of remote work wear on, some Canadians are concluding that if they don’t need to work downtown, they may not want to live there, either.
“We were hunting [for] a two-bedroom condo in core downtown, so we could just walk to our office every day,” said Jinesh Sheth.
For the same price as a two-bedroom condo in downtown Toronto, Shah and Sheth purchased a four-bedroom home in suburban Ajax, Ont., with a backyard and room for a dedicated home office. (John Lesavage/CBC News)
But when the pandemic hit, he and his wife, Puja Shah, found themselves working in very tight quarters in their rental apartment, sometimes interrupting each other’s video meetings.
Since both of their employers have indicated that at least part-time remote work will be allowed going forward, they pivoted their purchasing plan and bought a four-bedroom house in suburban Ajax, Ont., for the same amount they would have spent on a condo downtown.
“We are very confident that it’s going to be a much better life and we can take a walk in our backyard, and we don’t have to run into each other so much during our meeting times,” Sheth said.
Darren Fleming, CEO of commercial real estate company Real Strategy in Ottawa, said moves like theirs are bound to have profound effects on the “ecosystem” of businesses that surround office buildings.
Darren Fleming, CEO of commercial real estate firm Real Strategy in Ottawa, said the move of so many office workers to home offices is having a profound effect on the ecosystem of businesses that surround those workplaces. (Christian Patry/CBC News)
“It means the barbershop that only did business with office tenants during 9 to 5, Monday to Friday, suddenly may not have anybody to cut hair with,” he said.
“We’re already seeing a shift to people moving to the suburbs and residential, because if they’re going to be working from home … maybe they’re going to need a second bedroom. I think it’s a little bit early to say. But fundamentally, I think there’s been a change in the way we work. And it’s going to be very interesting.”
Netflix (NFLX) stock slid as much as 9.6% Friday after the company gave a second quarter revenue forecast that missed estimates and announced it would stop reporting quarterly subscriber metrics closely watched by Wall Street.
On Thursday, Netflix guided to second quarter revenue of $9.49 billion, a miss compared to consensus estimates of $9.51 billion.
The company said it will stop reporting quarterly membership numbers starting next year, along with average revenue per member, or ARM.
“As we’ve evolved our pricing and plans from a single to multiple tiers with different price points depending on the country, each incremental paid membership has a very different business impact,” the company said.
Netflix reported first quarter earnings that beat across the board on Thursday, with another 9 million-plus subscribers added in the quarter.
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Subscriber additions of 9.3 million beat expectations of 4.8 million and followed the 13 million net additions the streamer added in the fourth quarter. The company added 1.7 million paying users in Q1 2023.
Revenue beat Bloomberg consensus estimates of $9.27 billion to hit $9.37 billion in the quarter, an increase of 14.8% compared to the same period last year as the streamer leaned on revenue initiatives like its crackdown on password-sharing and ad-supported tier, in addition to the recent price hikes on certain subscription plans.
Netflix’s stock has been on a tear in recent months, with shares currently trading near the high end of its 52-week range. Wall Street analysts had warned that high expectations heading into the print could serve as an inherent risk to the stock price.
Earnings per share (EPS) beat estimates in the quarter, with the company reporting EPS of $5.28, well above consensus expectations of $4.52 and nearly double the $2.88 EPS figure it reported in the year-ago period. Netflix guided to second quarter EPS of $4.68, ahead of consensus calls for $4.54.
Profitability metrics also came in strong, with operating margins sitting at 28.1% for the first quarter compared to 21% in the same period last year.
The company previously guided to full-year 2024 operating margins of 24% after the metric grew to 21% from 18% in 2023. Netflix expects margins to tick down slightly in Q2 to 26.6%.
Free cash flow came in at $2.14 billion in the quarter, above consensus calls of $1.9 billion.
Meanwhile, ARM ticked up 1% year over year — matching the fourth quarter results. Wall Street analysts expect ARM to pick up later this year as both the ad-tier impact and price hike effects take hold.
On the ads front, ad-tier memberships increased 65% quarter over quarter after rising nearly 70% sequentially in Q3 2023 and Q4 2023. The ads plan now accounts for over 40% of all Netflix sign-ups in the markets it’s offered in.
Netflix reported first quarter earnings after the bell on Thursday. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/File Photo (REUTERS / Reuters)
Alexandra Canal is a Senior Reporter at Yahoo Finance. Follow her on X @allie_canal, LinkedIn, and email her at alexandra.canal@yahoofinance.com.
Oil prices initially spiked on Friday due to unconfirmed reports of an Israeli missile strike on Iran.
Prices briefly reached above $90 per barrel before falling back as Iran denied the attack.
Iranian media reported activating their air defense systems, not an Israeli strike.
Oil prices gave up nearly all of early Friday’s gains after an Iranian official told Reuters that there hadn’t been a missile attack against Iran.
Oil surged by as much as $3 per barrel in Asian trade early on Friday after a U.S. official told ABC News today that Israel launched missile strikes against Iran in the early morning hours today. After briefly spiking to above $90 per barrel early on Friday in Asian trade, Brent fell back to $87.10 per barrel in the morning in Europe.
The news was later confirmed by Iranian media, which said the country’s air defense system took down three drones over the city of Isfahan, according to Al Jazeera. Flights to three cities including Tehran and Isfahan were suspended, Iranian media also reported.
Israel’s retaliation for Iran’s missile strikes last week was seen by most as a guarantee of escalation of the Middle East conflict since Iran had warned Tel Aviv that if it retaliates, so will Tehran in its turn and that retaliation would be on a greater scale than the missile strikes from last week. These developments were naturally seen as strongly bullish for oil prices.
However, hours after unconfirmed reports of an Israeli attack first emerged, Reuters quoted an Iranian official as saying that there was no missile strike carried out against Iran. The explosions that were heard in the large Iranian city of Isfahan were the result of the activation of the air defense systems of Iran, the official told Reuters.
Overall, Iran appears to downplay the event, with most official comments and news reports not mentioning Israel, Reuters notes.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said that “there is no damage to Iran’s nuclear sites,” confirming Iranian reports on the matter.
The Isfahan province is home to Iran’s nuclear site for uranium enrichment.
“Brent briefly soared back above $90 before reversing lower after Iranian media downplayed a retaliatory strike by Israel,” Saxo Bank said in a Friday note.
The $5 a barrel trading range in oil prices over the past week has been driven by traders attempting to “quantify the level of risk premium needed to reflect heightened tensions but with no impact on supply,” the bank said, adding “Expect prices to bid ahead of the weekend.”
At the time of writing Brent was trading at $87.34 and WTI at $83.14.
Premier David Eby is warning real estate investors and speculators that his government is tilting the rules toward families seeking homes as it tightens the rules on short-term rentals.
Eby said Thursday that the rule changes on May 1 will limit short-term rental units to within the principal home of a host, but the move isn’t a ban on platforms such as Airbnb if they aren’t used to create de facto hotels from B.C.’s housing stock.
“If there’s a major event [such as a] Taylor Swift concert, a FIFA-like event and somebody wants to rent out their primary residence and go away for the weekend to avoid the crush of the crowds, they can still do that,” Eby said.
The changes were announced by the government last spring, giving those who own short-term rentals a year to conform.
Eby said the changes will allow both the province and local governments to crack down on speculators.
“If you’re flipping homes, if you’re buying places to do short-term rental, if you’re buying a home to leave it vacant, we have consistently, publicly, repeatedly sent the message: Do not compete with families and individuals that are looking for a place to live with your investment dollars.”
Eby made his comments as the province announced new figures gathered in March that showed more than 19,000 entire homes being listed as short-term rentals.
Housing Minister Ravi Kahlon said the new rules also require short-term rental platforms such as Airbnb to share listed property data with the province and local governments.
He said they expect a significant amount of the homes listed on short-term sites to be back in the long-term rental pool.
“Our view is even if half of those units were to come back onto the market, that is substantial,” Kahlon said. “The cost that it takes to build new housing, when you can get even half of the 19,000 back on the market, that’ll make a substantial difference in our communities.”
He said previous efforts to limit short-term rentals are increasing housing supply in some places.
“We’re seeing, already, in many communities that action happening,” Kahlon said. “We have heard many stories of people finding rentals now because of opportunities when it comes to short-term rentals coming onto the market.”
The new principal residence requirement for short-term rentals will allow local governments to request that a platform remove listings that don’t display a valid business licence.
Valid short-term rental hosts will also be required to display a business licence number on their listings if a licence is required by local government.
The new rules will apply to more than 60 B.C. communities, and Kahlon said a compliance enforcement unit will be phased in to help municipalities deal with rule violations.
Much of the monitoring and enforcement, however, will be conducted online through a new rental data portal that will allow local governments to track and request removal of listings from platforms.
“With this new digital portal, local governments will be able to upload, within moments, listings that they believe are operating illegally within their community,” Kahlon said.
The platform will have five days to remove listings that aren’t following the rules, and if they don’t, they will be fined, he said, noting there’s an up-to-$10,000-a-day-per-listing fine for platforms that don’t co-operate.
“We believe that’s enough of a deterrent for the platforms to co-operate with local governments,” said Kahlon
A website launched Thursday for hosts will allow them to get information about their requirements from the province and their municipality, and their responsibility to notify anyone that’s booked.
“Hosts and platforms have a responsibility to notify anyone that’s booking of all the changes that have been coming,” said Kahlon. “They’ve been notified about this since September or October when the legislation has come in, and they’ve had plenty of time to set up their policies to do that.”
The rules do include some exceptions, including some strata hotels and motels operating before last December being exempt if certain criteria are met.
Eby said the overall message to property investors looking for short-term gains is clear: Build homes that people need and government will do all it can to help expedite the process.
“But if you are standing neck and neck with a family that’s looking for a place to live, and you’re trying to do a speculative investment, [while] they’re looking for a place to live, we are going to tilt the deck every single time towards that family,” Eby said. “And we’re gonna keep doing it.”
Eby also said a positive side-effect of short-term rental regulation has been the re-emergence of hotel construction, with 1,400 rooms “in the development pipeline” in Vancouver.
“Those investors in those hotel rooms weren’t able to make the decision to proceed,” Eby said, citing the previous competition from short-term rentals. “Very clearly, with these regulations in place, there will be visitors to stay in hotel rooms, there will be a market for hotel rooms and they’re making the decision to proceed. This is very good news.”
Victoria-based Property Rights B.C. has filed a lawsuit against the province and city of Victoria to fight the new regulatory system.
It maintains the province overstepped its authority and its lawsuit is focused on preserving the rights to own and operate short-term vacation rentals. The organization is also seeking a delay in enforcement.
Asked about the lawsuit, Eby said he can’t comment on a matter that’s before the courts, “but what I can say is we’re very confident in the legal authority of the province to regulate the housing sector in this way and we’ll make the arguments that are needed in court to address that.”
More communities initially exempt from the province’s new regulations have opted in, including Gabriola Island, Mill Bay/Malahat, Cobble Hill, Cowichan Station/Sahtlam/Glenora, Cowichan Lake South/Skutz Falls, Saltair/Gulf Islands and North Oyster/Diamond. Tofino previously announced it would opt in.
Municipalities with fewer than 10,000 people, resort communities and regional districts are exempt from a requirement restricting short-term rentals to principal residences and either a secondary suite or laneway home/garden suite.
