This year, Japan’s coworking spaces are seeing mixed developments. The 2025 Coworking Trends Survey by Deskmag offers some interesting numbers from the Japanese market.

In short, just 42% of operators achieved ‘significant profits’, while a larger number (than the global average) are breaking even. While most operate as for-profit businesses, a higher proportion than elsewhere run non-profits or receive gov. funding. Big city coworking (in cities with 1M+ people) is thriving with occupancy around 70%. Where local operators are struggling is in finding qualified staff and having to explain coworking frequently.

As for revenue per space, the average operator earns around $370 per desk, while major cities are getting $630.

Carsten Foertsch from Deskmag has launched the 2024 Coworking Trends survey. Don’t recognize their names? Well you should, they’ve been running annual surveys, and sharing the insightful results, for 15 years. This year’s 10-minute survey looks to capture unbiased, realistic results about what’s working for coworking operators, and what’s not.

Listen out on the TWIC Podcast for a few minutes summary of what trends this year is focussed on investigating, and why we, at TWIC, would selfishly love you (and all your colleagues) to take 10 mins of your day to share your responses.

WeWork has exited bankruptcy and resumed normal operations on June 11. What does the new WeWork look like? And what happens next? Deskmag condensed the key information from the company’s bankruptcy filing into a 5-minute read.

Carsten Foertsch from Deskmag shares an overview of the German coworking market for the year so far. Sharing insights from a recent survey, 46% rated their economic situation as ‘good’, while more than half expect to see further improvement in the next 6 months. Unsurprisingly, smaller spaces or spaces in smaller cities, see their situation less favourably.

In summary: occupancy is increasing (nearly two-thirds of all coworking space is occupied), but long-term profitability is keeps creeping out of reach (factors like higher rents and energy prices come into play) – with 42% of local coworking spaces just breaking even.

Sofia Stolberg from PilotoMail shares another Forbes contribution looking at whether coworking (and it’s built in double-edge-sword of flexibility) has a revenue problem, given that Deskmag is reporting that nearly half of all operators are struggling to turn a profit.

The post highlights some remedies, including more cost-effective lead gen strategies, better retention through hospitality, and a veritable paradigm shift in coworking revenue stacks.