The popularity of home improvement keywords in 2023 has soared! Americans don’t want to go to the office to work anymore

According to the latest data released by Kastle Systems , office occupancy rates in major U.S. cities reached 50.4% in the last week of January , the first time that office occupancy rates have exceeded 50% since the outbreak of the epidemic in 2020.

However, a closer look shows that the number has barely grown since September , suggesting that a large number of workers are unlikely to return to the office any time soon.

That’s making life tough for retailers and restaurants that rely on downtown office workers as their primary customer base . For example, fast-casual salad chain Sweetgreen said in a November earnings call that Monday and Friday work schedules, when few people go to the office, had hurt its sales .

In fact, over the past three years, there has been a dramatic change in where Americans live and work.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the number of people working from home most of the time more than tripled between 2019 and 2021.

According to the Financial Times, commercial real estate companies such as RXR have accepted the reality that most employees may never return to office buildings in city centers.

Many high-income Americans have moved from city centers to suburbs or smaller, less expensive cities, citing the flexibility of working .

This has shifted demand to smaller cities and suburbs, with San Francisco having 6.5% fewer retail stores at the end of the fourth quarter of 2021 compared to the fourth quarter of 2019, while Phoenix had 4.1% more stores, according to a report from the JPMorgan Chase Institute.

The 10 fastest-growing areas for dining in the U.S. are smaller cities or suburbs, such as New Haven, Connecticut, and Ontario, California, according to restaurant reservation company OpenTable.

This is also why more and more restaurants choose to open stores in the suburbs. According to the Wall Street Journal, Chicago-based restaurant group Dineama Hoitality Restaurant Group opened its first suburban restaurants this year.

In addition, workers spending more time working from home will also indirectly boost online shopping sales. As people stay at home for a long time, the demand for home decoration and home office hardware is more obvious.

According to data from Google Trends, the popularity of the keyword "2023 home improvement trends" in the United States has soared in the past six months, and most of it is concentrated in underdeveloped areas.

In the future, interested sellers may also consider adding new categories, mainly to explore potential demands that may arise after consumers work from home.

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