Foot traffic in all major Canadian cities began rising from April onward, following the lifting of COVID-19 restrictions across provinces
high in mid-June, as major employers began mandating a return to the office, data from the global commercial real estate company Avison Young showed.
The debate over returning to the office has raged over the past two years, as employers have grappled with whether or not to mandate a partial or full return to work for their employees, in the face of a tight labour market. Montreal’s downtown core foot traffic increased by 46 per cent, while Edmonton’s rose by 43 per cent in the same time period.
“Larger tenants in the downtown cores of cities have started asking their employees to come back into the office two to three times a week,” said Thomas Forr, director of data, analytics and innovation for Avison Young’s Canadian office. The Avison Young data also showed a variation in which days employees tended to work from the office. Across all six major Canadian cities – Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, Edmonton, Ottawa and Calgary – employees tended to prefer working from the office on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. Foot traffic was 20 per cent lower on Mondays and 23 per cent lower on Fridays.