Etsy to shutter its SF office

Office cutbacks at Bay Area tech companies continue as Etsy, whose employees say they prefer to work from home, will close its office in San Francisco.

The Brooklyn-based e-commerce company announced it would close its offices at 20 California Street in the Financial District, SFGate reported.

The third-floor office has more than 7,800 square feet of office space, including a reception area, two conference rooms, two breakout rooms and four call rooms.

They will be up for lease in October, according to Loopnet. Offices on the second, fourth and seventh floor were also on the listing.

Etsy announced it would close the Downtown satellite office after most of its staff said they didn’t plan to come back after a shift to a hybrid work model.

“Many who are currently remote have told us they do not plan to return to an office in the near future,” Kim Seymour, chief human resources officer, wrote in a news release shared on Etsy’s website. “As a result, we are closing our offices in Hudson, NY and San Francisco, CA, where employee office utilization has been extremely low.”

A spokesperson for Etsy told SFGate that the office will close in September.

The online artisan marketplace will consolidate operations to “a few key office ‘hubs’ in centralized regions,” including the company’s headquarters in Brooklyn, as well as offices in Dublin and Mexico City, Seymour said.

Etsy received “overwhelmingly positive” feedback from staff this year in a company-wide employee engagement survey, with more than 80 percent of employees responding favorably to the flexible work model.

“One of our guiding principles is minimizing waste, and operating offices that go predominately unused is in direct opposition to that principle — wasting energy, capital and internal programming efforts,” Seymour said.

The move follows a series of Bay Area tech companies that have closed or shrunk their Downtown offices.

This week, Twitter said it would cancel its office lease in Oakland in addition to vacating its remaining office space connected to its SoMa headquarters, where it leased several floors. Earlier this month, Salesforce listed nearly half its office space at 50 Fremont Street for lease.

Block said last month that it would not renew the lease on its former headquarters in Mid-Market, while PayPal announced it would close its office at 425 Market Street.

“The pandemic, in particular, has taught us there are many ways in which we can work effectively while providing our employees with flexibility,” PayPal told the publication.

– Dana Bartholomew

• • San Francisco office vacancies up across board