In the decade before the pandemic, the amount of office space per worker in the US shrank steadily — a trend given the charming name “densification.” Saving money was one driver, as was a belief among some employers that denser layouts encouraged interaction and innovation. But the best predictor of densification was “market-level job growth and the availability of space (or lack thereof),” commercial real estate brokerage Cushman & Wakefield concluded in a 2018 analysis of the phenomenon. That is, in large office markets such as Manhattan and San Francisco and up-and-coming ones such as Miami and Nashville, companies were simply hiring workers faster than they could find space for them.

Fast-forward to 2023. More than a billion square feet of office space stands empty in the US, according to Cushman & Wakefield’s estimates, for a national vacancy rate of 19.4% (up from 13% just before the pandemic). Yet after an upward spike in square feet per worker in 2020, the densification appears to be accelerating.

QOSHE - Why Your Office Space Continues to Shrink - Justin Fox
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Why Your Office Space Continues to Shrink

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14.11.2023

In the decade before the pandemic, the amount of office space per worker in the US shrank steadily — a trend given the charming name “densification.” Saving money was one driver, as was a belief among some employers that denser layouts encouraged........

© Bloomberg

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