Will omicron put office plans back in limbo?

PLUS: Jobs Slowdown and Hiring in the Metaverse

VIEW IN BROWSER | SUBSCRIBE FRI, DEC 03, 2021 TECH, TRANSFORMATION AND THE FUTURE OF WORK EDITOR'S NOTE Welcome to the CNBC @Work newsletter, brought to you by CNBC Events. Think a friend, colleague or business partner should receive this newsletter? Subscribe here. The leading jobs headline points to a slowdown in hiring with nonfarm payrolls increasing by 210,000 in November, well below Wall Street expectations of 537,000. This follows a gain of 546,000 the previous month. Possibly tempering the hiring miss is the news that the participation rate is on the rise, hitting its highest rate since March 2020. But even as more Americans are getting back to work, going back to the office is another story. Some companies, including Apple, anticipating potential uncertainty following the holiday season, began pushing back return to office dates last month. Now, the latest omicron variant means more organizations may take a second look at their return to workplace plans as well. Just yesterday, Google announced its own 'wait-and-see' approach, telling employees none of its offices will adopt a hybrid working mandate on January 10 as expected. Ultimately, whether the vaccine proves equally effective with omicron as with the other variants will likely have the biggest impact on return to office timelines.    For more on the world of work, check out our Key Stories roundup below.   Until the next time, stay safe, stay healthy and stay in touch.   KEY STORIES Harvard work guru on the make-or-break questions about jobs of the future in U.S. What will the future of work look like post pandemic? That is the million-dollar question, according to Rachel Lipson, founding project director of Project on Workforce at Harvard University's Malcolm Wiener Center for Social Policy. The Harvard University expert says there is still the chance the workplace reverts back to a norm that resembles the pre-pandemic office world and a risk that remote work develops into an inequitable professional class system. The office monitor workers will find more common in the Covid era is surveilling the air Harvard professor Joseph Allen says there's one safety measure offices can't overlook. Healthy workspaces rely primarily on the air employees breathe, and research going back years before the pandemic shows that improvements in air ventilation and air quality lead to increased cognitive function and work productivity. Looking for a job? You might get hired via the metaverse, experts say Some say metaverse worlds are set to go mainstream and will be the next evolution of the internet. Others say its just the latest corporate buzzword to get investors excited over some nebulous innovation. One way companies are planning to use the metaverse is for hiring and people management, with the likes of Hyundai already using virtual world app Zepeto for new employee inductions and Samsung reportedly staging a virtual recruitment fair via a platform called Gather in September. COMING UP TechCheck: Accelerating Innovation in Health | January 6, Las Vegas Are you or a fellow colleague attending CES this January? Join CNBC's Jon Fortt for an exclusive dinner reception and discussion on the evening of January 6th. For more information and to register, click here. MORE FROM CNBC EVENTS Unsubscribe Manage Newsletters Terms of Service Join the CNBC Panel Digital Products Feedback Privacy Policy   © 2021 CNBC LLC. All rights reserved. A property of NBCUniversal. 900 Sylvan Avenue, Englewood Cliffs, NJ 07632 Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes. Global Business and Financial News, Stock Quotes and Market Data and Analysis. Data also provided by THOMSON REUTERS