As Americans Work From Home, Europeans and Asians Head Back to the Office

While U.S. offices are half empty three years into the Covid-19 pandemic, workplaces in Europe and Asia are bustling again.

Americans have embraced remote work and turned their backs on offices with greater regularity than their counterparts overseas. U.S. office occupancy stands at 40% to 60% of prepandemic levels, varying within that range by month and by city. That compares with a 70%-to-90% rate in Europe and the Middle East, according to JLL, a property-services firm that manages 4.6 billion square feet of real estate globally.

Return to office was even more common in Asia, JLL said, where rates ranged from 80% to 110%—meaning that in some cities more people are in the office nowadays than before the pandemic.

Bigger homes, longer commutes and a tighter labor market help explain why Americans spend less time in the office than Europeans and Asians, workplace consultants say.

This divergence in return-to-office habits not only benefits overseas landlords more than their U.S. peers. It has a direct impact on how quickly metro areas rebound from the pandemic’s economic shock. Cities in Europe and Asia have bounced back relatively well. But empty office buildings and missing commuters have undermined recoveries in U.S. cities such as New York and San Francisco, where local restaurants, shops and other businesses that rely on office workers as their primary customers have suffered.

The number of unemployed in New York City increased by 83,500 between early 2020 and the third quarter of 2022 as the city’s unemployment rate surged far above the national average, according to a report by the New School Center for New York City Affairs. Many of those who lost their jobs worked in Manhattan in face-to-face industries such as retail, accommodation and food services.

While Manhattan has been particularly hard hit because of its dependence on office commuters, other U.S. central business districts are also struggling. Falling office values are threatening to hit city budgets that depend on property taxes. Lower transit ridership is weighing on the finances of public-transportation authorities. Adding more apartments can help revitalise central business districts, but that will take time.

Several overseas capitals experienced periods where more than 75% of their workers were back at their desks in 2021 and 2022, JLL said. That includes Tokyo, Seoul and Singapore in Asia. Paris regularly topped the list of workers back in the office in Europe. Stockholm wasn’t far behind with several months at a more-than-75% return-to-office rate.

No major U.S. city tracked by JLL achieved that high a return rate during the period.

“The U.S. has borne the brunt of this,” said Phil Ryan, director of city futures at JLL.

Living arrangements are one reason for the difference in work habits. Americans are more likely to live in spacious suburban houses. That makes it easier to set up a home office away from distractions. Hong Kong’s small apartments, for example, often house multiple generations, making working from home less appealing.

Suburban sprawl means many Americans have longer, more tedious commutes plagued by worsening traffic jams—another reason to stay home. While a number of European cities also have long average commutes, New York and Chicago are unmatched, according to mobility-services company Moovit Inc. Public-transit systems in Europe and Asia are often more reliable and less prone to delays, making it easier to get to work.

“We have high-density cities with effective public-transport systems,” said Caroline Pontifex, London-based director of workplace experience at consulting firm KKS Savills. “That makes a difference.”

Another explanation for America’s office exceptionalism is its labor market. At 3.4%, the U.S. unemployment rate is barely more than half the European Union’s unemployment rate of 6.1%. While Europe is also facing labor shortages, U.S. companies have been particularly hard hit, said JLL’s Mr. Ryan.

That has forced them to look farther afield for employees and hire remotely. Tech firms, which account for a particularly high share of employment in some big U.S. cities, have long been more tolerant of remote work.

Co-working companies are also reporting lower occupancy in some U.S. cities. WeWork Inc. said 72% of its desks in New York were leased as of the fourth quarter of 2022, compared with 80% in Paris, 81% in London and 82% in Singapore.

Workplace consultants say they expect the office-use gap between the U.S. and the rest of the world to persist.

It doesn’t help that U.S. offices were emptier long before the pandemic. A construction glut led to high vacancy rates, and even within leased offices companies tended to put fewer people on each floor than their European and Asian peers.

All that empty space is now creating a negative reinforcing cycle, said Phil Kirschner, an associate partner at business consulting company McKinsey & Co. Americans sitting in big, mostly empty offices find the experience depressing, making them more likely to stay at home in the first place. “It feels less energetic,” he said.

Must even steak be politicised? The American Heart Association recently recommended eating more “plant-based” protein in a move to counter the Health and Human Services Department’s new guidelines calling for more red meat.

Few would argue that eating a Big Mac a day is good for you.

On the other hand, growing evidence, including a study last month in the Journal of the American Medical Association, suggests that eating more meat—particularly unprocessed red meat—can reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s in the quarter or so of people with a particular genetic predisposition.

The APOE4 gene variant is one of the biggest risk factors for Alzheimer’s.

You inherit one copy of the APOE gene from each parent. The most common variant is APOE3; the least is APOE2.

The latter carries a lower risk of Alzheimer’s, while the former is neutral. A quarter of people carry one copy of the APOE4 variant, and about 2% carry two.

APOE4 is more common among people with Northern European and African ancestry. In Europe the variant increases with latitude, and is present in as many as 27% of people in northern countries versus 4% in southern ones. God smiled on the Italians and Greeks.

For unknown reasons, the APOE4 variant increases the risk of Alzheimer’s far more for women than men.

Women’s risk multiplies roughly fourfold if they have one copy and tenfold if they have two. Men with a single copy show little if any higher risk, while those with two face four times the risk.

What makes APOE4 so pernicious? Scientists don’t know exactly, but the variant is also associated with higher cholesterol levels—even among thin people who eat healthily.

Scientists have found that cholesterol builds up in brain cells of APOE4 carriers, which can disrupt communications between neurons and generate amyloid plaque, an Alzheimer’s hallmark.

The Heart Association’s recommendation to eat less red meat may be sound advice for people with high cholesterol caused by indulgent diets.

But a diet high in red meat may be better for the brains of APOE4 carriers.

In the JAMA study, researchers at Sweden’s Karolinska Institute examined how diet, particularly meat consumption, affects dementia risk among seniors with the different APOE variants.

Higher consumption of meat, especially unprocessed red meat, was associated with significantly lower dementia risk for APOE4 carriers.

APOE4 carriers who consumed the most meat—the equivalent of 4.5 ounces a day—were no more likely to develop dementia than noncarriers. (

The study controlled for other variables that are known to affect Alzheimer’s risk including sex, age, physical activity, smoking, alcohol consumption and education.)

APOE4 carriers who ate the most unprocessed meat were at significantly lower risk of dying over the study’s 15-year period and had lower cholesterol than carriers who ate less. Go figure. Noncarriers, however, didn’tenjoy similar benefits from eating more red meat.

The study’s findings are consistent with two large U.K. studies.

One found that each additional 50 grams of red meat (equivalent to half a hamburger patty) that an APOE4 carrier consumed each day was associated with a 36% reduced risk of dementia.

The other found that older women who carried the APOE4 variant and consumed at least one serving a day of unprocessed red meat had a cognitive advantage over carriers who ate less than half a serving, and that this advantage was of roughly equal magnitude to the cognitive disadvantage observed among APOE4 carriers in general.

In all three studies, eating more red meat appeared to negate the increased genetic risk of APOE4.

Perhaps one reason men with the variant are at lower Alzheimer’s risk than women is that men eat more red meat.

These findings might cause chagrin to women who rag their husbands about ordering the rib-eye instead of the heart-healthy salmon.

But remember, the cognitive benefits of eating more red meat appear isolated to APOE4 carriers.

Nutrition is complicated, and categorical recommendations—other than perhaps to avoid nutritionally devoid foods—would best be avoided by governments and health bodies.

Readers can order an at-home test from any number of companies to screen for the APOE4 variant.

The Swedish researchers hypothesize that APOE4 carriers may be evolutionarily adapted to carnivorous diets, since the variant is believed to have emerged between one million and six million years ago during a “hypercarnivorous” period in human history.

The other two APOE variants originated more recently, during eras when humans ate more plants.

APOE4 carriers may absorb more nutrients from meat than plants, the researchers surmise. Vitamin B12—low levels have been associated with cognitive decline—isn’t naturally present in plant-based foods but is abundant in red meat.

Foods high in phytates (such as grains and beans) can interfere with absorption of zinc and iron (also high in red meat), which naturally declines with age. So maybe don’t chuck your steak yet.

As Americans Work From Home, Europeans and Asians Head Back to the Office

Return-to-office rates in Paris and Tokyo have climbed to over 75%, while U.S. often sits around half

At least for people who carry the APOE4 genetic variant, a juicy steak could keep the brain healthy.