The big news this week is Amazon mandating employees return to office 5 days a week starting in January 2025.
Corporate employees will be expected to be in the office five days a week “outside of extenuating circumstances” or unless they have been granted an exception by their organization’s S-team leader, Jassy said, referring to the close-knit group of executives that report to Amazon’s CEO.
Source: CNBC.com
Of course, I believe these return to office mandates are merely the new mechanism by which companies force people to quit so they don’t have to pay out severance packages.
Ultimately, I think this scheme will backfire on Amazon because there are still millions of baby boomers retiring from the labor force every year and the problem seems to be getting worse.
It doesn’t help that there aren’t enough skilled young people to replace all of the aging workforce either.
It will be interesting to see the fallout from this next year. I’ve written before that if my employer expects me to go back to the office that I’d simply opt to retire and/or do consulting for other firms on a part-time basis. I really don’t have the drive to waste hours commuting to an office somewhere then waste more hours driving back home. I also save $1500/month in hard costs and $3000/month in soft costs working from home. These savings are the reason I am able to spend $23,000+ vacationing in Europe this summer.
Fortunately, my employer has no plans to change work from home policies but that doesn’t mean there won’t be layoffs in the future either.
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What do you think? Have you been forced to go back to the office or lose your job? Let me know in the comments below.