One of the surviving places will always be empty. This is a fundamental property of the GC algorithm used by the JVM HotSpot.
HotSpot uses a copy collector for young space (EDEN and survivors). For odd collections, EDEN + S0 are copied to S1, to even collections EDEN + S1 are copied to S0. As a result, EDEN and one of the survivors become empty. EDEN is filled with new objects later, but the survivor will remain empty until the next young collections.
See also Details on GC Pauses in the JVM, HotSpot minor GC .
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