JPMorgan suffers setback in return to office

Employees sent home from Madison Avenue building after worker tests positive for Covid-19

Jamie Dimon and 383 Madison Avenue (Getty, Google Maps)
Jamie Dimon and 383 Madison Avenue (Getty, Google Maps)

JPMorgan Chase sent some employees home this week after a worker tested positive for Covid-19, just days after the bank directed some of its staff to return to the office.

The bank alerted employees on Sunday that a worker on the fifth floor of the company’s 383 Madison Avenue building had been infected, Bloomberg News reported. The communication came less than a week after JPMorgan told some employees in the sales and trading divisions to prepare to return to the Madison Avenue building by Sept. 21.

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A spokesperson for JPMorgan told Bloomberg the bank could not comment on any one case, but said the company has been “managing individual cases across the firm over the course of the last few months and following appropriate protocols when they occur.”

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Company CEO Jamie Dimon has been going into the office since June, and more JPMorgan employees have been slowly returning to the workplace since Labor Day. But this recent interruption highlights the challenges banks and other companies face as they look to return to the office after months of working from home.

Some of New York’s biggest landlords have pushed major employers to bring their workers back.

And real estate executives including Douglas Durst, Marty Burger and Rob Speyer recently joined the city’s broader business community in urging Mayor Bill de Blasio to help by addressing public safety and quality-of-life issues. [Bloomberg] — Rich Bockmann