According to a report by Avison Young, the consulting, research, accounting & recruiting industries in greater Boston have shown the strongest recovery in office visitation rates compared to pre-COVID levels. Additionally, biotech, life sciences, pharma & healthcare tenants have also seen significant increases in office visits.
On the other hand, tech and media companies as well as PR firms and those in telecom and entertainment have experienced lower total recovery percentages. Media firms rank last with only 32.5% of pre-pandemic office visits while tech and aerospace/defense tenants are tied for second lowest at 51.5%. Tenants from FIRE sectors (finance/insurance/real estate) and government agencies are slightly higher.
Avison Young’s Boston Data Bite suggests that this disparity is due to differences in industry nature. For instance, employees at tech companies can work remotely through virtual platforms whereas those working on life sciences or drug discovery projects need to be physically present on-site for their tasks.
Overall,the data shows that life sciences and consulting industries lead the way for Boston’s office visitation recovery post-COVID-19 pandemic.
