Louder call for workers to return to CBDs.

 

NSW residents will be asked to return to their desks from 1 March, with rules around masks also set to be scrapped from this date.

 

Premier Dominic Perrottet said it was a “civic duty” to bring workers back to the CBD in a move that is predicted to bring social and economic benefits.

 

When asked if restrictions on masks and working from home would be extended past the current 28 February date, the premier said the state was 'on track' to see those measures be lifted.

 

He added he would 'ike to see people come back to the office as quickly as possible”.

 

More live music, events, discounted public transport fares and vouchers are ideas being floated as potential incentives for returning employees, according to the Daily Telegraph. 

 

The return of workers into the office will align with the state government's plans to scrap masks in all indoor settings.

 

The government is hoping the rule change will breathe life back into the Sydney CBD as the Omicron wave of new COVID cases continues to decline. 

 

'Missing millions' in Melbourne CBD

 

Meantime, traders at one of Melbourne’s most iconic shopping arcades are calling for the immediate return of CBD workers and free parking to get the city thriving once again.

 

Block Arcade managing director Grant Cohen said CBD workers needed to “immediately return” to the CBD to get it back on its feet.

 

“The lifeblood of the CBD is the workers and when they come back, it’s the workers’ partners that come back and visit them for lunch and dinner, so when half a million workers come back into the city it translates to one million people in the CBD,” he said.

 

“Proof of that is the difference between weekdays and weekends because the weekends are strong, the city is alive and well on the weekend,” he added.

 

Coffee consumption levels highlight the impact of COVID-19

 

Weekday café transactions in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane are below 40 per cent of pre-COVID levels as the Omicron outbreak reinforces remote working arrangements.

 

ANZ Research senior economist Adelaide Timbrell said structural changes in the workplace mean café transactions are unlikely to hit pre-pandemic rates even when conditions improve.

 

"This data does show that there is some structural change in the way people are working, and the strongest evidence of that is actually in the period between the second wave of COVID in 2020 and the Delta outbreaks in the second half of 2021," Timbrell told the AFR.

 

"You can see that particularly in Sydney and Melbourne café transactions didn't get up anywhere near where they were in 2019 which means that even when there really wasn't much of COVID within those cities, or any COVID risk in some parts of that period, people still weren’t coming back into the office.

 

"We can even see in the Brisbane CBD where there really wasn’t any COVID for most of 2021, but it was still showing less café transactions on weekdays in the CBD," he said.

 

PHOTO: Nestle Professional