"Amazon required employees to work from the office five days a week starting January 2nd," writes the Seattle Times, "a change from the company's three-day in-office mandate that had been in effect since May 2023."

And as Seattle's largest employer (with 50,000 Seattle-based workers), this had an impact, according to data the Times cites from the nonprofit Downtown Seattle Association:

In January, downtown Seattle recorded the second-highest daily average for weekday worker foot traffic since March 2020. It also saw 2 million unique visitors on its sidewalks last month. That represents 94% of the visitors downtown Seattle saw in January 2019, the Downtown Seattle Association found...

In a statement Friday, Amazon said "we're excited by the innovation, collaboration and connection we've seen already with our teams working in person together...." Jon Scholes [the president of the Downtown Seattle Association] said Amazon's return has been a boon for downtown Seattle. As the city's largest employer, its mandate instantly brought more people to shop and dine around South Lake Union, the Denny Triangle and surrounding neighborhoods... "I think we're seeing people get reacquainted with the reasons they liked working downtown prepandemic," Scholes said. He expects to continue seeing an uptick in foot traffic over the course of the year as more companies follow Amazon's lead and the weather warms up.

But Seattle magazine says the statistics show foot traffic in neighborhoods where Amazon's offices are located (South Lake Union and Denny Regrade) "at 74% of that of January 2019. Overall, downtown-area foot traffic was 9% higher than it was a year ago, though only 57% of the pre-pandemic average."

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