The golden age of remote work seems to be ending. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that even tech firms (the first industry that told employees they could work from home forever just a few years ago) are getting engineers and project managers back in the office. The economic blogger Kevin Drum, formerly of Mother Jones, has taken note of the increasing anti-remote literature and is making a bold prediction about the future of work: there is none. It’s not going to look much different than it’s ever looked. That’s because the remote work revolution just isn’t going to materialize.
“Companies that put up with [remote work] for a long time are finally getting sick and tired of [it],” Drum wrote on Sunday. The reason for that is fairly straightforward: Working from outside the office “simply isn't as productive as office work, no matter what remote workers say. Too much evidence has piled up to credibly deny this any longer.”
