Number of employees returning to downtown workplaces on the rise: survey

A new survey from the Downtown Winnipeg BIZ found about a third of the neighbourhood’s workforce is back in the office full-time, marking the biggest uptick since the organization started tracking this figure in the first year of the pandemic.

The new data shows companies reported 28 per cent of employees who worked downtown pre-pandemic are back to working in the office full-time. That is up from the previous survey in September of 2021, which found 24 per cent of downtown employees had returned to their workplaces. The most recent rate is also the highest since the organization first started tracking in 2020.

The survey, which was done in partnership with Probe Research, also found 47 per cent of people who worked downtown pre-pandemic are back downtown at least part-time.

The survey has 95 per cent certainty that the results are within four per cent.

"We've been working really closely with a lot of the large employers downtown. We surveyed them, representing about 10,000 workers,” explained Downtown Winnipeg BIZ CEO Kate Fenske.

“The thing that's so great, and I think is really optimistic for our downtown, is that 100 per cent of those large employers are committed to bringing their employees back.

Among those is True North Sports and Entertainment. The company said all of its 200 employees have been working downtown since February.

“The work that we do, it's public assembly where we want people to come downtown so that they come to our venues, and so being back in the office is a big part of that,” explained Dawn Haus, True North Sports and Entertainment’s vice-president of human resources.

The data is also good news for business owners like Hue Nguyen, who’s been working as a shoemaker in the neighbourhood for decades.

He said he’s seen many stores come and go over the years, but the strain COVID-19 brought to the business community was unlike anything he had ever seen before.

“It was rough. It was really bad. Even for myself, really, really bad,” Nguyen told CTV News.

With many businesses looking at hybrid workplaces where employees split their time between the office and home, Downtown Winnipeg BIZ said it is looking to depend less on commuters.

"We do need to think a little bit differently about what our downtown looks like moving forward. We want to put a greater emphasis on growing the residential population, and also, just bringing people here for events and other things happening downtown so it's not just about the Monday to Friday, nine to five crowd,” Fenske explained.