Measuring Office Attendance During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Using Mobility Data to Quantify Local Trends and Characteristics

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the work-from-home trend, with significant variations in location, industry, and firm size. Although these shifts have significantly impacted economies and societies, traditional data cannot be tracked easily. Hence, this study presents a method of measuring office attendance and examines its trends and characteristics. To this end, we first introduce the working-at-office ratio, which is the percentage of people going to an office compared to the pre-COVID-19 period in 74 office submarkets in six major Japanese cities, by capturing mobility trends in office buildings using mobile location data. Subsequently, we demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed indicators by comparing them with other mobility data and office attendance indicators. Finally, we examine the relationship between the working-at-office ratio and the characteristics of office buildings and tenants in each submarket. The findings indicate that factors such as the proportion of large buildings, concentrations of specific sectors, and tenant size are significantly related to office attendance. Notably, these relationships change over time.

Keywords: office attendance rate, COVID-19, alternative data, work from home.

JEL Classification: C49, E29, R23