What Businesses Are Excited About Amazon’s Return to Office Policy?

Amazon, in 2025, has re-instituted a mandatory 5-days-in-the-office policy, and dozens of businesses could not be happier.

   The new policy will benefit a lot of surrounding small operators

 According to Geekwire, the new policy is expected to start to have an impact on Monday, January 6th, although it went into effect January 1st.

Amazon has now required its workers at its headquarters in Seattle's South Union area to spend at least five days in the office as opposed to remote work. An estimated 50,000 workers in Seattle and another 12,000 in Bellevue are expected to push thousands of dollars into the local surrounding economy.

Area restaurants, food truck vendors, even doggy day care owners are excited about the move. Next to the pandemic ending and a return to business, they say this is one of the biggest boosts they will get.

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According to Geekwire:

"Amazon first announced its intention to bring employees back into the office five days per week in September, when CEO Andy Jassy wrote that the company’s culture is “unique,” but to keep it strong “you have to work at it all the time.”

City leaders and small business owners have expressed optimism that Amazon’s move could trigger a wider shift to more days in the office for more companies, jettisoning the remote and hybrid policies that took root during the pandemic."

However, Geekwire reports that an anonymous blog poll done online among Amazon workers shows that a number of them are not happy about the five-day requirement, so much so that some are looking for a new job because of it.

While the policy began January 1st., most of the businesses say there's a holiday hangover, and they expected traffic to pick up significantly starting Monday. Most of them did notice an uptick in business on Thursday and Friday, though.