The return-to-office debate just got a little more hazy

The winner of the return-to-office debate remains…unclear.

More than one-third (35%) of full-time employees worked from home “some or all of the time” in 2025, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, up from 33.4% in 2024. Despite this comeback of sorts, office attendance is still seemingly on the rise.

Total office visits reached a new post-pandemic high last month, hitting 8.5% YoY, according to Placer.AI data. Though, as many companies increased the number of days employees are expected to work in the office, visits were down just 21% from 2019 levels, a slow improvement from 27.2% in June 2025.

“We do continue to see improvement in return-to-office trends. There’s been a lot of debate this year whether or not we’ve hit that new normal, kind of a new equilibrium, whereas other people continue to think we’re going to see more office visits,” R.J. Hottovy, Placer.AI’s head of analytical research, told HR Brew.

In June 2020, office visits plummeted by 84.5% as employers embraced remote work amid the Covid-19 pandemic. But they’ve steadily improved since. Total office visits were down for the same month by 71.5% in 2021, and 35.2% in 2023.

“I don’t know if we’re ever going to quite get back to the point we were pre-pandemic,” Hottovy said. “There’s a lot of businesses that have found that a remote or hybrid work model works for them, but I also think a lot of businesses have also found that things can be collaborative when you’re in an office.”