Is rise of remote workers hurting tire sales?

No matter whom you talk with these days, the message is the same: Tire demand is softening.

Some blame inflation. With food prices at an all-time high — the price of eggs alone is up 60% in the last year — the choice between feeding your family or replacing a set of tires isn't much of a choice.

With pundits warning of an impending recession, companies cutting staff and air travel returning to pre-pandemic levels, the tire-buying frenzy of 2021 has cooled to a slow — maybe steady — burn. Those factors, however, are fleeting. Today's bear market could turn into the bull in a matter of months.

One factor that presumably has affected tire sales, however, seems to be here to stay: The growing remote workforce.

When the World Health Organization first declared a pandemic in March 2020, non-essential businesses had to adapt. Employees and employers alike had to figure out how to do the work from home, as well as or better than before.

Three years later, many of those newly turned remote workers remain at home, still performing the same, great work they once did in an office. Their vehicles — and the tires they ride on — sit idle.

David Simons, president of Buffalo, N.Y.-based Exxpress Tire Delivery, said he believes the remote workforce — part of a "new normal" the company described to its dealer network during its recent conference — has had a major impact on tire sales. This is especially true when any hybrid worker can decide to stay home and work rather than drive in inclement weather.

"Tires are needed if you need to get to work," Simons told Tire Business. "If you have a choice of whether to go in or not, now tires become a discretionary purchase."

Without the requirement to be in an office physically, he said he believes tires become less important for repair.

"That's what's driving a lot of this (softening tire sales)," he said, pun intended.

It's a factor that frankly hadn't occurred to me — at least in the context of helping contribute to a slowdown in tire sales, and particularly winter tire sales, in the region Exxpress Tire serves.

As I write this from the comfort of my home office, where I have been working now almost exclusively for the last three years, Simons makes a great point.

I joke with friends that my commute has gone from 22 miles (one way) to 22 steps. That certainly is true.

But the wear and tear on my cars, and my tires, have decreased significantly. Thanks to a schedule that allows me to work from home most days, I figure I have saved driving 6,000 miles per year conservatively.

That's not only extending the life of my 2019 vehicle and its OE tires, but it also prevented me from rotating my tires at least three more times.

Imagine how that is playing out across the country, in cities big and small.

According to data released by the U.S. Census Bureau, the number of people working primarily from home tripled from 2019 to 2021, from 5.7% (approximately 9 million) to 17.9% (27.6 million). In the District of Columbia, nearly half (48.3%) of the workers are home-based.

Here are some other interesting facts, courtesy of career website Zippia.com:

•  As of 2022, 26% of U.S. employees work remotely;
• As many as 36.2 million American employees are expected to work remotely by 2025;
• 40% of workers believe they were more productive working at home during the pandemic, as opposed to the office;16% of U.S. companies are fully remote; and
• Remote jobs comprise 15% of work opportunities in the U.S.

For a hands-on tire industry with employees required to report every day in order to perform their job duties, working remotely is a foreign concept.

"We've been shielded a little bit about what's going on with the rest of the world," Simons said. "The rest of the world is dialing it in and patting themselves on the back for doing a great job when I'm guessing they're not. They're getting the laundry done and grass cut."

Simons wonders how a newly hired 25-year-old can be acclimated into an employer's culture while not stepping into an office.

"From an employee's perspective, it's spectacular," he said, "until you figure out four years after being with a company, you don't know anybody who works there, so you get a better offer someplace else. You have no connection to anybody in the company, so you say, 'Sure, I'll hop to another job.'"

Working remotely is the 21st Century's genie: Once out of the bottle, it's impossible to put back.

While we can argue the merits and/or deficiencies of working at home — I see both but now feel comfortable and content working at home — the disruption this practice has caused on the tire industry is undeniable.

Even as cars on the road get older and miles driven returns to pre-pandemic levels, there is no doubt working remotely has meant less business for tire shops across the world.

It's the new normal.

But look at the bright side: At least you're not in the office space business.