Well before WFH companies did all kinds of social activities for their employees. After 2020, they choose to completely forget about those things.

I always dreaded those social activities. Even when "not mandatory" it was always expected to show up and pretend to have more in common with the peers than "I'm here to do the work and collect a paycheck" anyway.

I dreaded them too. It turns out not having them is even worse.

What’s really harming young employees is the completely unrealistic expectations being placed on them and the lack of hiring.

The paper cited only studied software engineers at one Fortune 500 firm over 5 years, but the article states (emphasis mine), "[The paper] found that younger workers suffered career-wise by working from home, receiving less training and fewer opportunities for advancement."

It would be less disingenuous to suggest all workers wear hard hats citing a study of construction workers. At least that has been replicated.