The Ontario government, all major Canadian banks and Amazon offices are just some of the workplaces across Canada that are moving away from a remote work model and asking their employees return to office. This comes as some employees had gotten used to working from home, after the COVID-19 pandemic emphasized sheltering in place and avoiding large gatherings, which forced many companies and governments to adopt this mode of work. More than five years later, office life is slowly shifting back to what it was pre-pandemic. However, the trend of calling workers back to five days a week at the office, or offering a hybrid model of a minimum three days in office, is not sitting well for some Canadians. On Sept. 18, hundreds of public servant workers gathered outside Ontario’s Queen’s Park to protest the province’s return-to-office mandate. Smaller rallies were also organized across the province in Guelph, Kingston, Oshawa, Peterborough, St. Catharines and Sudbury. The Association of Management, Administrative and Professional Crown Employees of Ontario (AMAPCEO) filed a dispute over the return to office policy announced by Ont. Premier Doug Ford’s government on Aug. 14. According to a recent report by Statistics Canada, the percentage of employees across Canada who spent most of their working hours at home in November 2024 stood at 18.2 per cent. That’s down from 25.4 per cent in November 2020, months after the COVID-19 pandemic started, but up from 3.6 per cent in May 2016. Have you been called back to the office? What impact has that had on your life as a working parent? CTVNews.ca wants to hear from you. Share your story by emailing us at dotcom@bellmedia.ca with your name, general location and phone number in case we want to follow up. Your comments may be used in a CTVNews.ca story.
