Amazon delays its full-time RTO because it doesn't have enough office space

Order more office?… Amazon’s struggling to deliver on its 5 day/week in-office mandate. In September, it ordered its 350K+ corporate employees to be back in the office full time by January. Update: the ecomm leader reportedly told staff in Atlanta, Houston, Nashville, and New York to cool their RTO heels. Apparently, Amazon doesn’t have enough desk space for its white-collar workers. Business Insider reported that Amazon told some employees to stay away until May, and it’s unclear how (or if) the company intends to solve its space problem. Amazon’s said to be bailing on office construction plans and breaking leases to save $1.3B.

• Backdoor layoffs? Amazon’s mandate was criticized by employees, some of whom said it was a sneaky way to cut headcount while avoiding layoffs. Nearly 75% of employees are said to have considered quitting because of the rule.

• Primed for problems: Amazon’s struggled with square footage before. When it announced a required 3 days/week in the office last year, it was also short on space.

Doin’ it differently… Amazon’s full-time office mandate bucks a larger trend: corporate America has landed on a hybrid schedule. That could partly explain why there’s 900M+ square feet of empty office space in the US, putting the vacancy rate at a 30-year high of 20%. Around 70% of US companies offer hybrid work, and new data shows that employers with flexible schedules have seen outsized hiring growth compared to their fully in-office peers.