Losers: Entry-level workers in less established positions If the pre-pandemic office was like a fine-dining experience—a large group enters, sits down together, and leaves several hours later—the post-pandemic office may be more like a neighborhood café. People will come and go, you’ll recognize some of them but feel estranged from others, and the office might convey a sense of both vague belonging and day-to-day transience. That’s not an ideal environment for new workers to feel welcomed into a community of peers. “Deprived of desk neighbors, impromptu coffees, and any real way to, for a lack of a better term, read everyone’s vibe,” my colleague Amanda Mull wrote last year, “new hires and young people who work remotely risk remaining unknown quantities.” Losers: Downtown landlords and businesses You don’t have to believe in the death of the city to see how remote and hybrid work will shake up urban businesses. Hybrid work entails less commuting, and less commuting means fewer consumers in urban cores. Bloom and his co-authors estimated that the post-pandemic shift to WFH will durably slash spending in downtown restaurants, movie theaters, barbershops, and other retailers by up to 10 percent compared with pre-pandemic spending. As commuting declines, public-transit authorities should also expect lasting hits to revenue.