Some Office Space Occupancy Hopes Are Resting On The Return Of Digital Nomads

For decades, the corporate world has been comfortable parsing out work to remote workers, freelancers, independent contractors and self-made entrepreneurs. 

But during the global pandemic, that comfort reached a new level when Zoom and Google Meet staff sessions replaced in-person conference room meetings. Not content with only working at a home office, some of those remote employees and subcontractors took their freedoms an additional step. 

They became what is referred to today as digital nomads, working on laptops in remote locales ranging from a city park in Lisbon, Portugal, to an RV in Arizona. But with the pandemic in the rearview mirror, many of those digital nomads are being called home, which some owners of empty office space should be looking at as a good sign.  

MBO Partners, which runs a platform for independent workforce management, reports that the number of digital nomads with traditional jobs increased by 9% in 2022, growing from 10.2 million in 2021 to 11.1 million in last year. But in 2023, the tide has begun to shift as more companies expect their employees to be in the office at least three days per week. 

Defining digital nomads is a challenging task. All ages and job titles work from home for varying lengths of time, with some employees traveling for months and years, either finding a single location or jumping from country to country. 

"The concept of work from anywhere has run its course," Jan Freitag, national director for hospitality market analytics at CoStar Group told Benzinga. "The pendulum is swinging back. A lot of companies like Zoom are requiring people to come back to the office, and my clients on Wall Street are telling their employees to be at work five days a week. Travel, which in the past few years was at least a month at an Airbnb, has become a two- to three-week vacation." 

Being a digital nomad has its financial benefits with the end of costly commutes, daycare and babysitting fees and the need to buy work clothes to wear in the office. But some U.S. nomads who have decided to work from single or multiple global locales since the pandemic are now finding very different welcomes from foreign governments.  

Many Lisbon residents have been vocal regarding rising rents in the city, attributing it to the influx of new global remote workers, even though there are no statistics to support that complaint. Even so, the Portuguese government has reacted, ending its so-called golden visa program for new foreign property buyers in an attempt to slow the rise of rents and home prices. 

Canadian officials have taken the opposite tack, encouraging digital nomads to move to the country to help stave off a nationwide worker shortage.  

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"We expect that some digital nomads who initially enter Canada to work remotely will decide to seek opportunities with Canadian employers," the Canadian government said in a press release. 

The government also opened up its H-1B visa program for U.S. workers, offering 10,000 applicants to work for any company in Canada for three years. Those openings were directed toward tech workers, and the government reached its maximum applications less than 48 hours after the initiative's launch in July. 

The academics and researchers who make up The Conversation news network put the number of digital nomads from the U.S. during the pandemic at 16.9 million, an increase of 131% from the prepandemic year of 2019.

Although the 2023 numbers aren't known, it's become evident that many companies expect employees to be in the office, especially technology companies, which have found that collaboration and ideas are better formed when people sit across from each other. 

This year, Google told its workforce it would track office badge attendance with an expectation of being physically present three days per week, which will be reflected in their performance reviews. Meta Platforms Inc. staff have also been told to return to the office at least three days per week. 

The most ironic of these requests to get back in the office came from Zoom, which advanced the technology needed to work remotely and check into the office. It notified employees recently that if they live within a 50-mile radius of a company office, they were required to come physically to work at least two days per week.

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