WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2020 B1KNTECH ECONOMY MEDIA FINANCE
3 RETAIL
Two shopping mainstays,
Debenhams and Arcadia
Group, have fallen in Britain,
both victims of e-commerce.
7 SQUARE FEETHelsinki, Finland, is adopting
sustainability goals it hopes
will earn it a new title: the
world’s most functional city.
9 SPORTSIf nothing else, Jets Coach
Adam Gase has a knack for
losing games, passing the
buck and creating discontent.
Rob Siminoski has been in the the-
ater, in one way or another, since
he graduated from college. But af-
ter 10 years at the Universal Stu-
dios theme park in California, he is
only No. 13 on the stage-managing
roster. Even if the park, closed
since March, reopens some attrac-
tions — the WaterWorld stunt
show, say, or the Nighttime Lights
at Hogwarts Castle — he is un-
likely to be among the first to get
the call.
His luck is that his union, the In-
ternational Brotherhood of Elec-
trical Workers, offers an appren-ticeship program for on-set movie
electricians. It takes five years,
and Mr. Siminoski, 33, is going to
have to brush up his high school
algebra to get in. Still, it offers a
good balance of risk and reward.
“Everyone needs electricity,”
he said. “You pull down six fig-
ures.”
The nation’s economic recov-
ery from the Covid-19 pandemic
will hinge to some extent on how
quickly show managers can be-
come electricians, whether taxi
drivers can become plumbers,
and how many cooks can manage
CONTINUED ON PAGE B6By EDUARDO PORTERCHLOE CUSHMANWhat’s Left for Workers
If Their Old Jobs
Don’t Return?
SAN FRANCISCO — Salesforce said
on Tuesday that it would buy the
workplace software company
Slack for $27.7 billion in cash and
stock, the latest in a wave of deals
as the coronavirus pandemic
boosts demand for tools that en-
able people to work remotely.
If completed, the acquisition
will end Slack’s brief run as an in-
dependent publicly traded com-
pany — it went public in mid-2019
— and cap an acquisitive streak
by Salesforce with its largest deal
since it was founded 21 years ago.
The deal is the biggest bet
among a recent spate of acquisi-
tions made by tech companies to
capitalize on the shift to remote
work. Adobe said last month that
it planned to acquire the work
force management software com-pany Workfront for $1.5 billion. In
July, Atlassian, which sells tools
for developers and project man-
agement, said it would buy the en-
terprise services business
Mindville for an undisclosed
amount.
Other firms focused on work-
place collaboration products, in-
cluding Airtable, Asana, Box, Do-
cuSign, Dropbox and Smartsheet,
may also be potential targets as
highly valued software companies
look to roll up the fragmented
market for collaboration tools.
The Salesforce deal for Slack
shows how competitive the soft-
ware market has become, said Lo-
gan Purk, a senior analyst with
the financial advisory firm Ed-
ward Jones. Without a “game-
changing product” and a lot of
capital, he said, “you’re going toSalesforce
To Spend
$27.7 Billion
To Buy Slack
A tech company’s big bet
on software for remote
workers’ collaboration.
By ERIN GRIFFITH
and LAUREN HIRSCH49%
Slack’s revenue increase in the
three months ending in July.CONTINUED ON PAGE B4For the first time since the pan-
demic shuttered the economy
eight months ago, the end is in
sight.
The development of vaccines
that appear to be safe, effective
and ready for wide distribution
in the months ahead means it’s
now possible to envision a post-
Covid economy by summer.
There is a distinct possibility
that the economy could roar back
to full health quickly as soon as
public health conditions allow.
But for that to happen, the
United States will need to make
it through what might be a cold,
dark winter in which damage
could be done to the tissue of the
economy that prevents that rapid
healing.
With many service businesses
having already depleted cash
reserves and the government aid
they received earlier in the year,
another wave of failures looms.
And that imperils not only indi-
vidual shops and restaurants, but
also the commercial landlords
they pay rent to, and the state
and local governments relying on
their tax dollars.
The challenge is to keep every-
thing going long enough to pre-
vent irreparable damage to the
ecosystem on which a huge
share of American economic
activity is built — office buildings
filled with workers, hotels and
airplanes that are full, vibrantComeback
Could Hinge
On Actions
This Winter
By NEIL IRWINCONTINUED ON PAGE B5In the Before Times, said Rebecca
Rittenberg, a 28-year-old who
works in advertising sales for
Google in New York, one of her fa-
vorite parts about going to the of-
fice was “showing up in a funky,
cool professional outfit.”
A smart pair of pants, colorful
or patterned blouses, blazers,
skirts, dresses, heeled boots and
designer sneakers were all part of
her wardrobe, which she used to
express her personality and keep
up with her stylish ad world col-
leagues.
Now, after eight months of
working from home, and with
Google saying workers won’t
have to return in person until next
summer at the earliest, a big
swath of that apparel has been do-
nated and replaced. Ms. Ritten-
berg’s new definition of “work
clothes” includes cashmere cardi-
gans and joggers, headbands, and
other cozy garments that fall
somewhere in the “healthy in-be-
tween” of pajamas and blazers.
“I looked at my stuff I used to
wear to the office all the time and
thought, ‘When am I ever going totouch this again?’ ” she said. “Our
mind-sets have shifted a bit with
this pandemic and the fact that
we’ve all been working from home
for so long. Once we are back in
the office, which I do think will
happen, it just seems like a prettyextreme jump to go back to wear-
ing a blazer and pencil skirt and
heels again.”
As many professional women
have found themselves in an ex-
tended period of remote work,
their notions of work wear have
transformed, shaking up busi-
nesses that have sought to outfit
them for the office. American of-
fice attire was already facing the
effects of “casualization” — even
Goldman Sachs loosened its dress
code last year — but as the pan-
demic drags on, the shift is accel-
erating and may stick around forgood.
Bloomingdale’s has watched
customers increasingly seek out
cashmere, flat shoes, pants with
elastic waistbands and other
comfy apparel, while brands like
Theory have rushed to add more
casual clothing to their lines, said
Denise Magid, an executive vice
president at Bloomingdale’s who
oversees ready-to-wear apparel.
“Regardless of when people go
back to the office, I think people
have grown comfortable with
what they’re wearing,” Ms. Magid
CONTINUED ON PAGE B4Hello, Cozy Sweater: Women’s Work Wear May Never Be the Same
‘I just can’t see people
giving away the
feeling of comfort.’
Denise Magid, an executive vice
president at Bloomingdale’s.By SAPNA MAHESHWARI