While so many of our economy’s sectors – entertainment, public transport, restaurants – have largely returned to operations similar to pre-pandemic times, white-collar office jobs have not, Yasmeen Serhan writes in the Atlantic. The reason, most of us know by now, is largely that people want more flexibility. And it’s not just in the U.S. Only one-quarter to one-third of this sector’s workforce has returned to the office in the U.S., Britain, Australia, Germany and France. Whether or not workers have come back is based on a lot of practical reasons: commute time, the size of peoples’ homes, their living situations and the reliability of their internet connections. With so much demand for flexibility, it will be hard for companies to retain workers without offering it. One source pointed out this will be important whether there’s a recession or not. “If you lose the wrong people in a downturn, things get worse, not better,” said Brian Elliott, the executive leader of Future Forum.