Dr. Gleb Tsipursky – The Office Whisperer
Nirit Cohen – WorkFutures
Angela Howard – Culture Expert
Drew Jones – Design & Innovation
Jonathan Price – CRE & Flex Expert
In 2008, the Western world faced a devastating financial collapse that seriously impacted employment. As companies folded and job offers vanished, an entire generation of young professionals found themselves pushed out of the traditional workforce just as they were preparing to enter it. (Sound familiar?)
What emerged in 2008 was unexpected: coworking spaces, meetup culture, and a surge of entrepreneurial experiments born from shared coffee shops, libraries, basements, and community centers where people congregated without offices to go into each day. These spaces were about structure, belonging, and the pursuit of purpose during uncertain times.
Today in China, a similar pattern is beginning to unfold. Will these seemingly desperate young workers actually create a ripple effect that leads to a flexible workspace industry boom? History tells us it’s likely.
The Rise of Faux Offices and Real Motivation
With youth unemployment hovering above 17% and an economy still struggling to regain momentum, many young adults in China are choosing to pay small daily fees to sit in mock office environments. These “pretend work” spaces offer nothing more than a desk, internet access, maybe a tea room, and the feeling of a workday. But for their attendees, that’s everything.
In the absence of formal employment, young people are replicating the rhythm and psychology of work as a way to cope. It’s a stopgap, but it’s also a subtle act of agency.
Coworking 2.0, Reimagined for China
Just as early coworking spaces in the U.S. offered refuge from isolation and encouraged experimentation, these pretend offices in Chinese cities are doing the same. They attract freelancers, aspiring entrepreneurs, job seekers, and digital creatives.
Some attendees use them to apply for jobs, build new skills, or explore solo ventures. Others are there simply to not be alone, or to make it appear to their families that they work in an office.
It echoes the early days of the coworking movement when spaces weren’t polished, corporatized, or sponsored. They were grassroots, cheap, and community-driven. Meetups were free. Coffee was shared. Ideas flowed in classrooms, libraries, and empty storefronts.
China’s pretend work spaces reflect the same spirit: low-cost, socially powered, and built by individuals with few options and many dreams.
Community as a Substitute for Structure
After any major disruption — economic crash, pandemic, political shift — comes a vacuum in traditional structures. When employers retreat, people gather. And what often forms in that gap is something powerful: micro-communities of creativity and collaboration.
In the U.S., post-2008 coworking environments gave birth to start-ups, tech accelerators, and new models of work. The people who once met over pizza and pitch nights became the founders of companies that now define modern industries. Many began by simply looking for a place to plug in their laptops and feel human.
That is exactly what’s happening now. In China, a generation once promised that degrees would guarantee careers is being forced to find its own path forward — and is doing so together, in spaces that feel more like support groups than office buildings.
A Culture of Self-Driven Reinvention
In cultures where formal employment is often tied to identity and respect, the absence of a job can feel like erasure. These pretend office spaces offer a way to reassert identity — not through a title, but through participation.
In the U.S. and Europe, coworking spaces helped redefine what “working” looked like. Not everyone became a founder, but many became more flexible, more creative, and more self-directed. That change in mindset reshaped industries. In China, this moment could be the start of a similar cultural redefinition.
Innovation Begins in Solitude, But Thrives in Community
One of the enduring truths of invention is that solitude is necessary, but community is sustaining. The best ideas may come when working alone, but the courage to pursue them often comes from being surrounded by others doing the same.
Whether in San Francisco in 2009 or Chengdu in 2025, the formula looks familiar: shared space, uncertain futures, peer encouragement, and a low barrier to entry. It is from these ingredients that some of the most transformative ideas emerge.
The Next Wave of Builders
This fake office trend may be the beginning of a new entrepreneurial wave in a country not traditionally associated with bottom-up innovation. Without institutional support, these young people are choosing self-determination over resignation.
And history tells us what comes next. A few years of quiet building, of coffee-fueled experimentation, of side hustles that become real.
From the forest fire of economic disruption, new ecosystems grow. In 2008, vanishing jobs amid an economic crisis planted a seed from which coworking bloomed. In 2025, perhaps China’s pretend work is planting the next one.
What looks like make-believe may be the beginning of something very real.
