With remote work becoming the norm across many industries, and some startups letting go of office space altogether, many are concerned that the co-working industry is in dire straits. So what will the post-pandemic world mean for the future of the co-working industry? Post-Covid-19, this might be, how can I put this, a slightly harder sell. Just a few years ago, many freelancers and startup hopefuls were enthralled by the idea of working from a shared space with the chance to meet and work alongside strangers. Does this mean we may have seen the end of the glory days of corporate tech campus culture? As with so many aspects of the future of work, and the office, only time will tell. Google recently announced its plans to spend $7 billion on new office space and data centers.Д¬ompanies seem to be taking very different approaches when dealing with the rise of remote work and its effects on office space. As more remote workers are dispersed throughout the United States, weвЂ™re likely to see less growth in flagship campuses, and more investment by companies in smaller regional вЂњ hubвЂќ areas in different parts of the country.ДЇor tech giants like Google, who have seen steady growth throughout the pandemic, the rise of remote work may not mean less office space. This move toward more staff working primarily remotely doesnвЂ™t necessarily mean the end of tech campus growth, or the expansion of large tech giants into new regional centers. Shopify CEO Tobi Lutke perhaps best emphasized this trend in a tweet announcing the option of permanent remote work for his company, which said, вЂњOffice centricity is over.вЂќ Others including Dropbox, Zillow, Shopify and many more have followed suit. In May 2020, Twitter and Facebook both announced that they would move forward with changes that allowed much of their staff to work remote permanently. The decrease in demand for office space in the technology industry is no surprise considering that many tech companies were among the first to commit to permanent remote work. Even tech giant Twitter is subleasing 100,000 square feet of its San Francisco office space. In August 2020, Pinterest pulled out of a deal to move into nearly 500,000 square feet of office space in San Francisco, paying a reported termination fee of $89.5 million. Still, there have been some definite changes to the landscape of tech offices and the commercial real estate driven by these industries. As these titans continue to thrive, itвЂ™s unlikely weвЂ™ll see any For Sale signs on their iconic Seattle and Bay Area digs.

But now that many job seekers are interviewing for remote positions, and many of the jobs that once operated out of shiny tech HQs are going fully remote, what will become of these meccas of corporate convenience?Дespite pandemic setbacks, many tech giants saw incredible growth in 2020, including Amazon, which saw an 84% profit increase, and Google, which boasts profits $21 billion dollars higher than in 2019.

Shared workspaces