Both Meta and Microsoft have embraced remote working. (agent)
California:
Facebook parent Meta and Microsoft are separately vacating office buildings in Seattle and Bellevue, Washington, according to the Seattle Times — in the latest sign of a shift in the tech sector and a softening office market.
Facebook confirmed Friday that it plans to sub-lease its offices in the six-story Arbor Block 333 in downtown Seattle and the 11-story Block 6 in the Spring District in Bellevue. Seattle Times Reported.
The Menlo Park, California-based social media giant said it is also reviewing leases for other Seattle-area office buildings. A soft market is a phase in the economic cycle characterized by more sellers than buyers and lower prices.
The Seattle Times said the same day, Redmond-based Microsoft confirmed reports that it would not renew its lease at the 26-story City Center Plaza in Bellevue, when that lease expires in June 2024.
The Seattle Times said the announcements come as the continued popularity of remote work and a tech recession coupled with mass layoffs have both cut demand for office space in Seattle and elsewhere.
According to the daily, both Meta and Microsoft have adopted remote working while bringing their workforces back into the tech sector. In November, Meta announced the layoff of 726 Seattle-area workers.
Meta spokeswoman Tracy Clayton told The Seattle Times that the leasing decisions were primarily driven by the company’s move toward remote, or “distributed” work. But he acknowledged that, “given the economic climate,” Meta was also “trying to be … financially prudent”.
META currently occupies all of Arbor Block 333 in Seattle and all of Block 6, which is scheduled to open later this year. Clayton said the company still has offices in 29 buildings, and about 8,000 employees in the Seattle area, which remains the company’s second largest engineering center outside the Menlo Park headquarters.
A Microsoft spokesperson explained its decision about City Center Plaza as part of the firm’s “ongoing evaluation of its real estate portfolio to ensure that we provide an exceptional place to work and provide the best opportunities for our employees.” create more collaboration and community.”
The decision for City Center Plaza also comes amid a massive remodeling of Microsoft’s Redmond campus, part of which will be completed in late 2023. Economic adversity and the sluggish return of remote office workers.
The struggle is most visible in downtown Seattle, where overall office vacancy now stands at 25 percent, according to a new report from commercial real estate agency Colliers.
The Seattle Times noted that even non-empty offices are often half empty, thanks to remote work. Since last summer, downtown Seattle has had about 40 percent of the workforce it had before the pandemic, according to cellphone location data from Placer.ai posted by the Downtown Seattle Association.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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