Job Cuts Are Sending a Chill Through the Remote Work World

The in-office perks didn’t lure them back. Those all-staff emails? The warnings were easy to ignore.

It’s the layoffs — increasingly targeted at remote workers — that are changing the calculus on working from home. Since the pandemic, many professional workers have had leverage in the battle over office attendance, as the flexibility to skip commutes for more sleep or time with family took hold. But a cooling white-collar labor market is having a chilling effect as companies increasingly scale back work-from-home options.

This polarizing pivot is leading many remote staff to a harsh but hard-to-ignore conclusion: The only thing worse than having to go in-person for a ...