While most people have jobs where office space is provided, there are many people who do not. Those who work freelance or are starting up a new company don’t have the luxury of large office space. That is where co-working comes in. People are able to rent an office space and everything that would be required in a regular office setting without huge overhead costs. This also allows people to network with others and bounce ideas off of each other. However, with the pandemic, co-working has taken a huge hit due to pandemic restrictions. Let’s take a look at the beginning and sudden end of co-working.
Age of Co-working
While co-working is a fairly newer concept, the birth of the idea can be traced back to 1995 and C-Base, a hackspace that was created by computer engineers in Berlin as a way to share ideas. The first co-working space was created in 2005 by Brad Neuberg in San Francisco, CA. Over the past decade, co-working has become a popular way for people to interact and share ideas in a way that was never possible before. It also helped freelancers find a space to be productive without all of the distractions they might have at home or in a coffee shop. Co-working has become an incredible way to work.
However, once the COVID-19 pandemic hit, lockdowns and restrictions forced people who could work from home. Fears of spreading the unknown virus caused many people who would work in an office space to stay at home and conduct business there. It was reported that the co-working market would decline by over 1 billion dollars from 2019 to 2020. Without people to occupy the spaces, co-working offices have faced some difficult times over the last year. There are signs of hope though. With vaccines rolling out and restrictions beginning to ease up, many of those who utilized co-working spaces before will likely start to seek them out again. It is difficult to say how long it will take to get back to where it was pre-pandemic, but it is hoped that the popularity will rise again.
While this suddenly stopped due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there is always the possibility that with restrictions easing, people will again look to these spaces for ways to share ideas and network with others out there. After all, we are a social species, no matter how much we enjoy our homes.