4 mins
Co-working in rural areas - a new land of possibilities?
Chiara Litardi
Martina Bisello
Brain drain from remote areas, high cost of living in cities, and stagnant rural economies are only some of the potential issues co-working spaces in rural areas can contribute to addressing. But how do such spaces come about, and how can their benefits be reaped?
The COVID-19 pandemic triggered the closure of many economic activities and led to a sharp decline in employment. European job retention policies and the rise in telework became a significant cushion against the employment shock. Teleworking arrangements enabled both social distancing and getting the work done - albeit away from the employer's premises.
As an outcome, working from home has spread considerably in the EU, with a proportion of employees who teleworked increasing from 5.4% to 13.3% between 2019 and 2021. After the pandemic receded, the proportion of workers engaging in telework remained high, even though the number of days per week working from home has reduced ("Regional employment change and the geography of telework in Europe", Eurofound and JRC (2024)).
Significant differences in the incidences of telework were recorded across Member States, at the regional and local level, with the share growing fastest in capital cities. For example, Dublin and Budapest had around a 24% increase of teleworkers between 2019 and 2021.
However, telework was becoming widespread beyond cities. With its widening adoption, some interest has grown in working at locations outside central city office areas in favour of a lower cost of living, less pollution, and a greener environment. Especially, since the internet connectivity in rural areas has improved remarkably in recent years, despite still lagging behind cities (Sostero M, et al., 2024).
While working from home remains the most common mode of telework, co-working spaces have increasingly become another option. Several initiatives by national, regional, and local governments have been launched since the outbreak of the pandemic to support remote working in rural or peripheral areas, such as the promotion of tiers-lieux in France, the National Connected Hub Network in Ireland, the Network of Telework and Co-working Spaces in Portugal, the South Working initiative in Italy, and the Kupland network in Estonia ("Remote work in rural and peripheral areas", Eurofound (2024)).
The initiatives are quite different in nature, scope, and entities involved. However, they have all helped to unveil the features of the workplace that attract people and can serve local development needs at the same time: something that many more regional and local authorities across Europe are yet to discover.
Co-working spaces "open areas for desk work as well as spaces such as meeting and training rooms" represent a viable alternative to home offices due to their numerous advantages. The worker can avoid distractions related to household responsibilities and establish clearer boundaries between private life and work. Co-working in rural areas can also help find social and professional contacts, and reduced commuting can result in timesaving and environmental benefits.
a key factor for the good running of co-working spaces is creating a sense of community, which is at least as important as creating the physical facilities
The increase in co-working in rural areas brings benefits for the local communities. Co-working can help retain people, reduce depopulation, and contribute to local economies. Creating co-working spaces can also play a significant role in revitalising unused buildings, supporting cultural and social regeneration. Not only does the local community benefit from these new work arrangements, but businesses do too. They can access a wider pool of talents irrespective of their location, and in doing so, decentralise their workforce.
Co-working in rural areas is a concept that can do a lot to encourage and enable people to work - and live! - in the otherwise peripheral areas. Economic specialisation typically takes place in cities, and it is one of the reasons why people move to urban agglomerations. Telework can loosen this connection between economic and professional opportunities and concentration of population, opening new opportunities for regional development.
However, public policies are instrumental in the creation and growth of co-working spaces outside urban areas since building a critical mass of users is much harder than in the city. Fewer users mean that these places may need support for their profitability and viability. In fact, co-working spaces in rural areas are mostly public or supported by public initiatives. For instance, the National Connected Hub Network in Ireland, has supported the spread of remote working hubs (Figure 1). Besides local and national initiatives, a number of European projects have enhanced transnational cooperation to facilitate the success of such places.
With the widening adoption of telework, some interest has grown in working at locations outside central city office areas in favour of a lower cost of living, less pollution, and a greener environment.
What emerges from the Eurofound study is that a key factor for the good running of co-working spaces is creating a sense of community, which is at least as important as creating the physical facilities (Eurofound, 2024). People going to co-working spaces in rural areas want to feel connected; therefore, co-working spaces usually offer, in addition to work facilities, activities and opportunities for training and networking. Overall, the potential for creating co-working spaces and searching for a set of supplementing services that work best in a particular locality remains an area for discovery ? for rural communities and policymakers alike.
Chiara Litardi, Research Officer at Eurofound, Martina Bisello, Research Manager at Eurofound