Despite early resilience, uncertainty surrounds U.S. office markets

The U.S. office market’s outlook is not as dire as the current economic downturn might portend, reported CBRE. Though far from certain, two potential scenarios could unfold — the worst of which forecasts a downturn that is not significantly greater than any other since 1990 (Figure 1).

However, several trends support a less severe scenario, according to CBRE. One is that office-using industries have been less vulnerable to COVID-19-related job losses due to remote working. Though further office-using job losses are expected in the second quarter, they should be less than those of other, more vulnerable employment sectors such as hospitality and retail. Employment data confirms this trend so far, and the unusually high number of job losses classified as “temporary” sugg