Uber CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi, is claiming remote work has negative effects on his company.
During a recent earnings call, he said the trend has caused the company to lose some of its most loyal customers.
“With the pandemic, a lot of people who are kind of commuting to work, stopped” said Khosrowshahi. “We have lost some of our most frequent customers.”
Now, the company is starting to see recovery as more people are making their return to the office.
Uber is seeing an average of 28 million trips per day, a 21% increase compared to the same time period last year. This is according to the company’s first-quarter earnings report for 2024.
The company also reported that its mobility gross bookings grew by 25% year-over-year, earning $18.7 billion. However, it declined by 3% over the last quarter.
Khosrowshahi said that Uber is overall welcoming to the return-to-office trend.
He said: “We love it here at Uber, people getting back to work and getting back to the office.”
During the full year of 2020, the app lost 14% of its revenue as it saw a 27% decline in the amount of trips people were taking.
Many companies have implemented the push for employees to return to the office, even if workers are not on board with the idea.
According to a recent survey by Ringover, 68% of U.S. employees claimed that their employer has recently pushed an RTO policy.
Commuting to the office is a major challenge for some workers. Many argue that longer commutes can hinder work-life balance.
It is also expensive. The average U.S. worker spends about $8,466 annually on their commute, according to data from Clever Real Estate.
Ringover also found that roughly 83% of employees surveyed would be encouraged to return to the office if the company paid their commute.
