The Edge Magazine Vol. 7

THE RESILIENT OFFICE IN ASIA PACIFIC

DR. DOMINIC BROWN Global Head of Demographic Insights dominic.brown@cushwake.com

E arly in the pandemic, many questioned the role of the office and whether the unforeseen global experiment in remote working would render the office irrelevant. Now, as we find ourselves in the third year of a global pandemic, we are gaining a greater sense of the long-term impact. With hybrid working seemingly entrenched in work-life across most of the globe, Asia Pacific isn’t seeing the same response, with much of its workforce instead heading back into the office. In fact, the Asia Pacific office market has shown continued resilience throughout this pandemic, being the only region to record consecutive quarters of positive net absorption since the virus’ onset, and the forecast for office demand continues to look positive largely due to the three following factors: growth in office-based employment, weaker adoption of flexible working practices and the vital role the office continues to fulfill. There has never been a time when workplace strategy has been so extensively discussed while so closely scrutinized.

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