Mayor Eric Adams on Tuesday continued his push for Big Apple businesses to send workers back to their desks, declaring: “We have to open up.”
Asked during an appearance on CNN to respond to employers like large banks that have instructed workers to delay their returns to offices amid the Omicron COVID-19 variant surge, Adams warned that employees staying home would harm the economy and working-class New Yorkers.
“We have to open up,” he said on the cable network’s “New Day.”
“If we don’t open our cities, those almost a million people who are behind in their rent right here in this city, we have low-skilled employees who can’t do remote employment from home or telecommuting, that’s not a reality in a city like New York,” he added. “I need my cities to open.”
Adams, who took office on Saturday, made the case that society must adapt to the new normal created by COVID-19 rather than returning to the days of hunkering down and massive stimulus spending.
“We have to be safe, we have to double down on vaccination and booster shots, we have to double down on testing, but we have to reshape our thinking of how do we live with COVID,” he explained. “We spent $11 trillion on COVID. We don’t have another $11 trillion! Every variant can’t be another $11 trillion. It’s time to open up and feed our ecosystem, our financial ecosystem.”
The new mayor’s comments come a day after he called on New York’s banks and other major employers to bring their employees back to Manhattan’s office buildings.
“That accountant from a bank that sits in an office, it’s not only him, it feeds our financial ecosystem,” Hizzoner said on Bloomberg TV.
“He goes to the cleaners to get his suits cleaned, he goes out to the restaurant, he brings in the business traveler — which is 70 percent of our hotel occupancy — he buys a hot dog on the street,” he added. “You can’t run New York City from home.”
They also come as many elite intuitions in the five boroughs have recently told workers to not come into the office amid a surge in COVID-19 cases driven by the more contagious but less deadly Omicron variant.
Goldman Sachs, which in August put in place a COVID-19 vaccine mandate, asked employees to work from home until Jan. 18, The Post reported Sunday. In December, Citigroup told staffers in its New York City and New Jersey offices they are allowed to work from home through the holidays.
Earlier last month, Jefferies Financial Group canceled all client parties and most travel, and asked employees to work from home when possible.