Content area
Full Text
When Dun & Bradstreet Corp. announced the move of its headquarters to Connecticut last month, attention focused on the $7.2 million state grant that was used to lure the 300 jobs.
But Dun & Bradstreet's decision had as much to do with laptop computers and cellular phones as it did with financial incentives. Company officials say the move was largely a product of the technological advances revolutionizing the workplace.
"The things we used to depend on a traditional office for, we can do anywhere," says Michael A. Bell, Dun & Bradstreet's director of corporate real estate. "We've been liberated from the need to come in every day."
That sense of liberation is sweeping through workplaces in New York with profound repercussions for the city's economy and real estate industry. Companies are considering headquarters or division relocations that would not have been possible a few years ago. Laptops, modems and computer networks are also allowing companies that are staying here to greatly reduce their office space.
The trend explains the failure of Wall Street firms and service companies to begin replacing jobs lost in the 1980s despite rosier bottom lines. "Productivity improvements and new technology have made employment a lagging indicator," says Carl Weisbrod, president of the city's Economic Development Corp.
But the ramifications of recent technological advances run much deeper. For the past 15 years city officials have focused primarily on preventing corporations from relocating data-processing centers as well as other back-office operations.
But now, new workplace technology threatens to move more front-office jobs out of the city, joining the exodus of back-office employment. It...