Growth in office-using employment is expected to drop to 0.3% in 2020, down from 1.5% between 2018 and 2019 according to CBRE’s 2020 outlook.
Rene Moreira, a CBRE Research Associate, provided a deeper look into what to expect from the national office market in the future and what impacted it in the past year.
According to Moreira, technology, coworking and amenity wars were the three factors that shaped the office market last year.
The biggest disruptors of the office market were real estate technology, as well as the evolution of the coworking business model.
Despite an economic slowdown that is expected to happen in 2020, businesses will still have major competition in seeking talent. Having a collaborative, healthy office environment will be key in attracting and retaining potential talent.
Meanwhile, coworking is expected to take a step back after having an explosive past few years, but it won’t be going anywhere.
“The sector went from being associated with traditional business professionals in executive suites to offering a trendy, but still professional, plug-and-play space-as-a-service model that now attracts firms other than just those in the creative industries,” said Moreira. “However, real estate investors had a reality check on the public perception of the value of the coworking business model. They were forced to rethink the office.”
