Some companies like JP Morgan Chase and L'Oreal have already asked workers to return in person.
But Mayor Bill de Blasio said that in his view, the city is in the planning stages of figuring that out.
"I think everyone should start the process now of determining how to do that," he said.
He said the city with 380,000 employees, bringing them back will have a very big impact on the city.
"We have to be smart about our sequencing," he said. "But for a lot of sort of smaller and mid-level employers, of course start to bring people back as soon as you feel ready. We want to make sure that this city comes back to life unquestionably, but for the big strokes, like opening schools or going through those big phases, or certainly the return of the larger city workforce. Those we're going to sequence carefully to make sure they conform to what the data and science is telling us about how we keep the coronavirus at bay in the city."
New York City public schools will begin to offer in-person classes under a Blended Learning hybrid model starting next Monday.
The city is also offering a Learning Bridges child care program to help parents that have returned to work.
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