Tech giants ditch office space in London and Europe

Tech giants ditch office space in London and Europe

Moves by Alphabet, Meta and Salesforce come as companies respond to downturn in sector’s stocks by cutting costs

George Hammond and Cristina Criddle writing for the Financial Times:

Google’s parent Alphabet, Facebook parent Meta and enterprise software giant Salesforce are among the US technology groups seeking to abandon leased office space in London and Dublin, according to people familiar with the plans.

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Meanwhile, demands from staff to work remotely during the coronavirus pandemic have turned some tech companies into accidental landlords that are now jostling to sublet surplus space in a challenged property market.

There’s been a lot of talk about what is going to happen with return to office plans in the new year, with many companies mandating that employees come back in.

Much of the public commentary from various CEOs has been around “the value of in-person collaboration”, but it’s hard to wonder if it’s less to do with that and more to do with the fact that these same companies have sunk millions into office space and are now trying to recoup some of that investment.