What is Coworking? Some Statistics

This month, Ivan Stevanovic reports an impressive list of statistics about Coworking [2].  (Important Caveat:  many of these statistics are from proprietary sources, and most are based on somewhat opaque methodology.  The reports are plausible, even though the empirical support is weak.)

Some of the stats are the usual:  there are almost 19,000 coworking spaces world-wide, and 30,000 “flexible office spaces”.  The latter appear to be a term for workspace that is similar to a coworking space, except not necessarily exclusively used by coworking. The latter would be a building suitable for coworking, but not necessarily used for that purpose.

Note that 50,000 workspaces worldwide is not a very large number.  That is a tiny number of the total buildings and workspaces in the world.

There are estimated three million coworkers world wide, according to the GCUC’s survey.  As I have noted earlier, there is room for argument about the definition of “coworker”, so this number has to be taken with care.  (Again: there are a billion workers in the world, so this is a tiny, tiny fraction.)

Some of the stats are no surprise to those who have read my definitive book on Coworking [1].  Coworkers work in digital industries, especially IT and media.  The workers are younger than the overall population of workers, and more male, though the proportion of women is increasing.

As I have discussed many times, coworkers like coworking for many reasons.  Coworking is a “respite from our isolation”, a tonic for loneliness, and a network of like-minded professionals. In short, it’s the community.

Stevanovic offers some stats about the state of the business.  Many workspaces are serving both coworkers and corporate workers.  I’m sure this has always been the case, though coworking was pioneered by and for freelancers.

Stevanovic reports the somewhat worrying statistic that, world wide, only 42% of coworking spaces are profitable, and 33% break even.  This puts the boosterism in perspective:  there may be more and more workspaces, opening every day, but many of them will close within a few years.  (One reason:  rents are rising.)

“there are currently around 18,700 coworking spaces around the globe. The number is growing daily and is expected to reach nearly 26,000 by 2025.”

The troubling implication is that these workspaces are breaking even or losing money in a strong economy with high employment.  At the next downturn, freelancers will suffer rapid reductions in hours and pay, and many coworking spaces will close.   Perhaps half or more existing spaces might close in a few years of bad times.

So much for the “future of work”.

Overall, these statistics confirm the foundations of coworking (“Community, community, community”, Chapter 3 of [1])  They also suggest that the recent drumbeat of talk about the “industry”, and the debt fueled rise of WeWork is probably a bubble.  WeWork is crashing, and the whole “industry” could crash.

Perhaps the lesson is, focus on the fundamentals, not on “growth”.  Coworking is about creating and sustaining community.  There is no short cut, and giant piles of borrowed money won’t help if you are doing the wrong things for your own people.

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1. Robert E. McGrath, What is Coworking? A look at the multifaceted places where the gig economy happens and workers are happy to find community. 2018, Robert E. McGrath: Urbana. https://whatiscoworkingthebook.com/
2. Ivan Stevanovic, Coworking Statistics You Need to Know in 2019, in SmallbizGenius. 2019. https://www.smallbizgenius.net/by-the-numbers/coworking-statistics