Mayor Eric Adams is urging New Yorkers to get off Zoom and return to the office, calling the move ‘crucial’ to the city’s culture and economy as COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations stabilize from an early-January peak.
Adams, 61, says the current work-from-home policies at major companies across the Big Apple are unsustainable and will disproportionately impact low-income workers whose jobs can’t be done remotely.
‘In order for our economic – financial ecosystem, I should say – to function, we have to have human interaction,’ Adams said at an economic development event at the Brooklyn Navy Yard on Wednesday, according to Insider.
‘It can’t be done from home. And if we do that, then we’re going to greatly impact low wage workers.’
He added: ‘You can’t stay home in your pajamas all day.’
Adams has chided major companies for extending their work-from-home policies during the Omicron surge since he took office at the start of the year.
Just 28 percent of workers are going into the office in the New York metro area, according to the Washington Post.
Vaccinated workers at Citigroup have been allowed to return to the office at least twice a week since September as part of a ‘flexible, hybrid work model,’ the company says.
Citigroup workers in the NYC region were asked to get ready to return to the office last week, the Post reports, while Wells Fargo said it was planning to bring workers back in mid-March.
NYC Mayor Eric Adams called on New Yorkers to return to the office at an event at the Brooklyn Navy Yard on Wednesday, saying, ‘You can’t stay home in your pajamas all day’
The mayor, 61, spoke as major companies and big banks, including JPMorgan Chase, have allowed their employees to work from home during the latest COVID-19 surge
Citigroup says vaccinated workers have been allowed to return to the office at least twice a week since September as part of a ‘flexible, hybrid work model.’ Above, the company’s headquarter sin New York City
Coronavirus case counts in the Big Apple have stabilized after the more contagious Omicron variant swept through the city in December and January
Wells Fargo, Goldman Sacks and JPMorgan Chase did not immediately respond to questions about their policies from DailyMail.com.
On Wednesday, Adams, who was sworn in on January 1, appealed to the city’s ethos as a cultural and economic hub as he decried remote work policies.
‘That’s not who we are as a city. You need to be out, cross-pollinating ideas, interacting with humans. It is crucial. We are social creatures, and we must socialize to get the energy we need as a city.’
The former police captain, 61, said he’s met with 100 CEOs this week as part of scheduled meetings with big and small businesses, according to the Washington Post.
He said he used the meetings to persuade the companies to participate in his summer youth jobs expansion program and to get them to call their workers back to the office.
‘Now is the time for us to get back,’ Adams said during a press conference for his first budget presentation. ‘I’m hoping within the next few weeks the CEOs map out a real plan of ‘this is when you need to come back.’”
Major financial institutions like Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Wells Fargo allowed their workers to work from home as the year kicked off and the more contagious Omicron variant swept across the country, setting a record number of infections.
New York City went from a 7-day average of 86 hospitalizations on December 2 to 952 on January 2, before settling back down at 81 on February 14
Some, including Mayor Adams, have called for an easing of COVID-19 restrictions as more data has revealed Omicron to be more contagious but not necessarily more lethal.
Adams appealed to the city’s reputation as a social and economic hub on Wednesday. ‘You need to be out, cross-pollinating ideas, interacting with humans. It is crucial. We are social creatures, and we must socialize to get the energy we need as a city’
In New York City, the 7-day average of COVID-19 infections went from 2,717 on December 2 to 43,017 on January 2, according to data from NYC Health.
That number declined to 1,218 cases by February 13.
Similarly, the city went from a 7-day average of 86 hospitalizations on December 2 to 952 on January 2, before settling back down at 81 on February 14.
Some, including Mayor Adams, have called for an easing of COVID-19 restrictions as more data has revealed Omicron to be more contagious but not necessarily more lethal.
‘We must get open, and let me tell you why,’ Adams said in an appearance in Bloomberg TV last month.
‘That accountant from a bank that sits in an office – it’ s not only him, it feeds our financial ecosystem. He goes to the cleaners and get his suits clean, he goes out to the restaurants, he brings in a business traveler, which is 70 percent of our hotel occupancy.’
The economic recovery from the pandemic is just one issue that Adams, a Democrat, is faced with after he succeeded former Mayor Bill de Blasio on January 1.
Overall crime in the city is up by 46.5 percent, according to the latest data from the New York Police Department.
As of January 1, there have been 276 instances of crime in NYC’s subway system – up 65 percent compared to the same period last year
A six-year-old boy riding the subway with his mother (pictured walking home) accidentally kicked another passenger on the subway, at which point the man threatened him with a baton
The suspect in the attack on a Manhattan 4 train was arrested immediately following the ordeal on Tuesday
Felony assaults are up 18 percent and shootings are up nearly 37 percent.
Transit crimes, including subway pushings, are up 60.8 percent from this time last year.
A six-year-old boy was threatened by a man wielding a baton after the child accidentally kicked him on the subway on Tuesday – one day after Mayor Eric Adams’ plan to combat crime and homelessness on the subways went into effect.
Adams announced his plan to improve safety aboard the city’s subways on Friday after hundreds of random attacks on New Yorkers, and complaints about mentally ill homeless people threatening commuters and leaving drugs paraphernalia around.
The scheme, which officially began on Monday, involves sending more police into the subways to crack down on sleeping, littering, smoking, doing drugs or hanging out in the system.
Photos by DailyMail.com captured vagrants passed out on the New York City subway trains and platforms on Tuesday morning – one day after Mayor Eric Adams’ plan to combat crime and homelessness on the subways went into effect
One homeless man sat slumped over his belongings in a crate while not wearing a shirt
It also includes changes that are supposed to connect more homeless people, many of whom have mentally illness, substance abuse problems or both, to mental-health services and permanent housing.
But within hours of the plan coming into effect, there were three serious attacks on the subway system; the one against the boy, a man who was attacked by a hatchet, and a woman who was slammed in the face by a metal bar.
On Tuesday, riders of the city’s subway system were able to intervene and protect the young child from the would-be attacker, who was later arrested.
And just the day before, Evelina Rivera, a 30-year-old chef, was struck by a homeless man wielding a metal pole on her way home from her shift.
Meanwhile, photos by DailyMail.com show vagrants were continuing to sleep on New York City subways and at platforms Tuesday morning, sprawled out on the subway seats in each of the five boroughs as they covered themselves with blankets and jackets as they tried to keep warm in the February weather.
Some appeared to be unconscious, not even moving as the subway reached its final stop and crews were cleaning the cars.
