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Various eateries in the CBD have seen an increase in sales since the government has relaxed workplace restrictions.
The first day of relaxed workplace restrictions saw the Central Business District (CBD) bustling once again, which was clearly reflected by the snaking queues at hawker centres and food courts during lunch hour, reported TODAY.
Last month, the government announced that starting Monday (5 April), up to 75% of employees who are able to work from home can work from their offices at any one time. This is up from the previous cap of 50%.
There is no limit on the time an employee could spend at the office, while the split-team arrangements were no longer made mandatory.
The government previously made working from home the default arrangement in Singapore, with limited number of home-based staff allowed to return to offices for up to 50% of their total working time.
Put in place since 28 September 2020, the earlier restrictions were set up to curb the spread of COVID-19.
Maslinda Maswari, a 50-year-old office manager, said she has been reporting once a week to the office since June 2020. With the easing of the workplace restrictions, she will now report to the office three times per week.
“We are a small firm, around seven employees, so not more than three were allowed in the office. We all mostly worked from home unless something urgent came up,” she told TODAY.
“But now we are hoping to ease our employees back into it, so we are starting to come back thrice or twice a week each but not more than four of us a day.”
TODAY noted that the return of lunchtime crowd is a boon for food businesses.
Kaii Hashim, a 30-year-old supervisor at Kipos Gourmet at One Raffles Place that sells salad bowls, shared that her store was 10% more crowded than last week.
“But it’s raining today so it might not be the most accurate representation,” she said as quoted by TODAY.
“But I do see a lot more people walking in and out compared to the last few months. There’s more crowd than usual so that is good for us.”
Doco Donburi at International Plaza, which serves Japanese rice bowls, registered a 15% increase in sales compared to the previous week.
“There were many more orders today, both from people eating-in and those taking away. Over the last few weeks there have been office people around but not as many as today,” said Lukas Tan, a 19-year-old part-time cashier, as quoted by TODAY.
Sofi Mohd Yussoff, who was out for lunch with her sister Shereen Mohd Yussoff, shared that she had to wait 10 to 15 minutes for her food to be prepared. The sisters are both payroll officers and had been back at the office since July last year.
“Usually this place is 50% packed, today about 80%. Just last week we didn’t have to queue for this, but now we do,” said Sofi as quoted by TODAY.
She noted that the restrictions on seating arrangements within food courts should also be updated in order to accommodate the return of more office workers.
“It feels like most people are back in the office and not everyone has the luxury of space in their own office to eat so they should lift the seating arrangements restrictions,” she said.
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Victor Kang, Digital Content Specialist at PropertyGuru, edited this story. To contact him about this story, email: victorkang@propertyguru.com.sg
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