They're still paying to rent/lease, and to maintain the empty office buildings. They're trying to get their money's worth, even if it ends up costing them in the long run.

being devils advocate here, they probably are blinded by the reports of workers who are inefficient at remote work. I want remote work as much as the next guy, I am deeply passionate for it; but I can see why management teams would want inhouse. Easier to monitor and ~~punish~~ mentor the under-performers if you are physically present in the building. The higher ups don't generally care about stats, they only care about what issues are being brought to their plate/causing more work for them... and the underperforming workers are a pretty big additional work for them.

It's good for companies that rent office space, but not for companies that own those offices. This is corporate landlords throwing a shitfit, and they have a lot more money and own more news outlets than companies who rent.

There have been further studies that show that work from home may not be as productive. The science doesn't seem to be as settled.

You also may have issues with coordination where some face time would be good on an as-needed basis. It may not need to be full time in the office, but I can see wanting some in person meetings.

And if your employees live in a lower COL area, you can literally pay them less.

They get huge tax breaks for the bodies those buildings were supposed to bring to their cities. Now that nobody's in them, those cities aren't getting the extra tax money from the office workers anymore, so they're pressuring companies to bring workers back to the office. No giant, money-thirsty corporation wants to maintain a huge, expensive office building, but they're stuck doing so unless they want to sell it at a loss and risk pissing off the owners of whatever palms they had to grease to get the deal in the first place.