The days of throwing in a load of laundry or walking the dog between Zoom meetings may be coming to an end for some city and county workers. Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell announced that the city’s executive branch employees will be required to report to work in person three days a week starting in November. Since 2022, Seattle employees were expected in the office twice a week.
Along with the Seattle mayor’s announcement came a similar announcement from King County executive Dow Constantine: The county’s executive branch employees will return to work at least three days a week. Outside of the executive branch, more than three-quarters of King County employees are already back to work on-site daily.
Sound Transit interim CEO Goran Sparrman has said that his agency will also start prioritizing in-person work for the agency’s executive branch employees.
These shifts would boost the recovery of Seattle’s downtown core, which is averaging about 93,000 daily workers. That’s the highest daily average since March 2020 when the pandemic forced many to work from home, yet it’s only 58% of the daily worker foot traffic seen in June 2019. With the city’s executive branch numbering about 13,300 employees, the increased daily presence of many of these workers is expected to accelerate the downtown comeback.
This post was based on information found on Everett Post.
