Personal Finance
10-to-4 is the new 9-to-5, traffic data shows
Commuters sit in traffic on southbound Interstate 5 during the afternoon commute heading into downtown San Diego on March 12, 2024 in San Diego, California.
Kevin Carter | Getty Images
Young professionals may be falling back in love with the nine-to-five aesthetic — known as “corpcore” — but few are logging the hours at the office to back it up.
Despite the renewed interest in work-appropriate attire (think a corporate take on quiet luxury: tailored suits or blazers and pencil skirts), the standard 40-hour workweek is dead, new research shows — at least when it comes to commuting.
As more commuters settle into flexible working arrangements, the traditional American 9-to-5 has shifted to 10-to-4, according to the 2023 Global Traffic Scorecard released in June by INRIX Inc., a traffic-data analysis firm. Its analysis shows fewer early morning trips and a higher volume of midday trips compared to pre-pandemic traffic patterns.
The workday is getting shorter
Now, there is a “midday rush hour,” the INRIX report found, with almost as many trips to and from the office being made at noon as there are at 9 a.m. and 5 p.m.
“There is less of a morning commute, less of an evening commute and much more afternoon activity,” said Bob Pishue, a transportation analyst and author of the report. “This is more of the new normal.”
Commuters have also all but given up on public transportation. Ridership sank during the pandemic, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis data shows, and never fully recovered.
The result is a surge in traffic congestion throughout the peak midday and evening hours, according to Pishue.
“Pre-Covid, the morning rush hour would be a peak and then the evening peak would be much larger,” he said, describing two apexes with a valley in between. “Now, there is no valley.”
‘Coffee badging’ is the worst of all worlds
“Employees have become accustomed to the flexibility of working from home and may only come to the office when absolutely necessary,” said David Satterwhite, CEO of Chronus, a software firm focused on improving employee engagement.
“That means they may jump out early to catch a train home, come in late, or pop in for one meeting and then leave,” Satterwhite added.
Also known as “coffee badging,” the habit of only going to work for a few hours a day has become widely accepted, or at least tolerated, other recent reports show.
More than half — 58% — of hybrid employees admitted to checking in at the office and then promptly checking out, according to a separate 2023 survey by Owl Labs, a company that makes videoconferencing devices.
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“We used to call it the jacket-on-the-back-of-the-chair syndrome,” said Lynda Gratton, professor of management practice at London Business School.
Whether a company has a strict return-to-office mandate or some variation of a hybrid schedule, “organizations need to be clear about what the deal is,” she said, “and an individual employee can decide whether they want the deal or not.”
However, because most people say they don’t want to come into the office because of the commute, coffee badging is the least successful type of compromise, Gratton added. “That is the worst of all worlds, they are still doing the commute but not putting in the hours at the office.”
Productivity is suffering
In part, workers are wrestling with employee burnout and their level of commitment has taken a hit.
After mostly trending up for years, workplace engagement has flatlined. Now, only one-third of full- and part-time employees said they are engaged in their work and workplace, while roughly 50% are not engaged, which can also be seen in the rise of “quiet quitting.” The rest, another 16%, are actively disengaged, according to a 2023 Gallup poll released earlier this year.
Not engaged or actively disengaged employees account for approximately $1.9 trillion in lost productivity nationwide, Gallup found.
These days, employees are more likely to consider work/life balance, flexible hours and mental health support over career progression, other reports also show. And fewer want to spend any more time at the office than they already do.
If the ability to work from home was taken away, 66% of workers would immediately start looking for a job that offered more flexibility, Owl Labs found — and a bulk of those employees, roughly 39%, would promptly quit.
“What we need to get to is a clearer description of how is it you are at your most productive, and that requires a senior team who are seeing this as an opportunity to redesign work and not simply responding to what happened during the pandemic,” Gratton said.
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President-elect Donald Trump has been vocal about potentially raising tariffs on imported goods, which experts say could bump up car prices.
Trump has talked about implementing an additional 10% tariff on Chinese imported goods, as well as adding tariffs of 25% on all products from Mexico and Canada. On Friday, Trump told the European Union it must reduce its trade gap with the U.S. by purchasing oil and gas, or it could face tariffs as well.
Tariffs are taxes on imported goods, paid by U.S. companies that import those goods.
Tariffs have the potential to disproportionately affect auto prices because materials used to assemble a vehicle come from different parts of the world. Some components even cross U.S. borders multiple times before they even get to the factory, according to Ivan Drury, director of insights at Edmunds.
“There’s no such thing as a 100% American vehicle,” said Drury. “There’s so much complexity, even though it’s a seemingly straightforward thing.”
Component tariffs could add $600 to $2,500 per vehicle on parts from Mexico, Canada and China, according to estimates in a Wells Fargo analyst note. Prices on vehicles assembled in Mexico and Canada — which account for about 23% of vehicles sold in the U.S. — could rise $1,750 to $10,000.
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If tariffs are enacted, the sticker price drivers pay at the dealership will eventually go up, experts say. But carmakers and sellers may have to bear some of the costs, too.
“The cost will spread across all stakeholders: automakers, dealers and consumers,” said Erin Keating, executive analyst at Cox Automotive. “No one company is going to dump all of that expense directly on their consumers.”
Here’s what to know.
Why cars may incur more tariffs than other goods
The automotive sector’s supply chain is unique because some pieces move back and forth across international borders while the part is built and assembled, experts say.
“People don’t really know where their vehicle is built and how it’s assembled from parts across the entire globe,” Drury said.
Take a steering wheel, for example. Electronic sensors or other parts that go into the steering wheel come to the United States for assembly from countries like Germany, Drury said. The steering wheel is then sent to Mexico for stitching, only for it to come back to the U.S. to be installed in the vehicle.
Vehicles could have “incrementally more tariffs applied” compared with other products, given the supply chain, said Keating.
If tariffs add to the manufacturing cost, automakers can’t risk passing on the entire tab to the shopper, experts say.
Carmakers and dealers may have to “bear some of the burden,” Drury said. “If you look at how expensive vehicles could get with those tariffs, there’s no way they’re going to be able to move as many [cars].”
There is, however, a silver lining — a lot of cars that will be on the lots in early 2025 have already been assembled or are currently being made, further adding to next year’s available supply, Keating said.
What car shoppers can expect in 2025
Car shoppers in 2025 are unlikely to see prices that factor in new tariffs, experts say. Baseline prices will be about the same, and dealers are likely to offer more incentives to pull in buyers next year.
The average transaction price for new cars is expected to hover between $47,000 and $48,000, according to Keating. As of November, the average price was $48,724, 1.5% higher from a year before, per Kelley Blue Book data.
While the average price is higher than pre-pandemic levels, “the good news is it’s relatively stable. We’re not vacillating all over the place,” Keating said.
As of December, average auto loan rates for new cars are at 9.01% while borrowing costs for used vehicles are at 13.76%, per Cox Automotive. The average rates for both types of loans are down about a full percentage point from a 24-year high earlier this year.
“We expect that consumers may see even lower rates by spring, which would create the most normal and favorable buying environment since 2019,” Jonathan Smoke, chief economist at Cox Automotive, wrote in the report.
For now, experts are optimistic for the auto market next year as inventory and deal opportunities grow.
“Tariffs or no tariffs, there will be more incentives,” Drury said.
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