More than three-quarters of Britain’s Gen Z workers and more than 70pc of millennials said they would consider looking for a new job if their employer asked them to go back to the office five days a week, a Deloitte survey found. Many white collar workers, particularly younger ones, are reluctant to return full time. Top earners, those educated to degree level or above, and those in professional occupations were most likely to avoid the office. Some 44pc of staff still work from home either some or all of the time, according to figures published by the Office for National Statistics in February. It came as Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer on Wednesday vowed to enshrine the right to work remotely in law, saying it was “very important”. He said businesses had to “find their own way through” but predicted remote working would not become the norm for most. Mr Hunt said working from home had brought benefits for parents juggling childcare and for disabled people who were less mobile.

His comments come as major City firms including BlackRock and JP Morgan are ordering staff back to the office.Įlon Musk, the boss of Tesla and owner of Twitter, has also attacked the “laptop classes” for wanting to work from home indefinitely while expecting manual workers to keep clocking in face-to-face. “Unless there's a reason, I think we will get to a point where… with the exception of specific categories of workplace - for example, call centres - I think the default will be that you work in the office.”

So I think that's why, increasingly, businesses are saying they want people back. “Not every great business idea happens in the structured form of a meeting. “And I worry about the loss of creativity when people are permanently working from home and not having those water cooler moments where they bounce ideas off each other. Speaking at the annual conference of the British Chambers of Commerce in London, Mr Hunt said: “There is nothing like sitting around the table, seeing people face to face, developing team spirit. The Chancellor said working remotely brought some benefits but he feared British businesses would struggle to generate new ideas if employees were allowed to work remotely indefinitely.

Jeremy Hunt has warned that Britain’s businesses face a creativity crisis unless working from the office once again becomes the “default”

For the Common Good by Alex John London