Maybe Forcing City Workers Back to the Office Wasn’t the Best Idea

When Mayor Bill de Blasio announced earlier this month that the city’s 300,000 municipal employees had to return to the office five days a week on September 13, many city workers panicked. Parents scrambled to line up child care. The immunocompromised rushed to put in requests to continue to work remotely. And people across all departments, from entry-level employees to senior management, began updating their résumés. By calling employees back while the Delta variant is still overwhelming the country, de Blasio has set the city government up for a staffing crisis.