As we all know, COVID-19 had been challenging and irksome for many, costing millions of lives worldwide. Moreover, it had also impacted the IT industries and companies, which had led to layoffs. Job cuts by IT companies in the past year almost stirred down the financials of victims.
IT companies plans layoffs for 30 lakh employees by 2022.
Followed by this, a report by McKinsey Global Institute, titled as “The Future of Work after 2020”, concludes that over 100 million workers in top 8 economic nations in the world will need to find a different occupation by 2030 in the post – Covid-19 world.
Work after COVID-19
Before pandemic, researchers found that nearly all low-wage workers at cases of layoff, might shift to another low-wage occupation in general. For instance, a data entry worker may move to retail or home healthcare.
But trends of COVID-19, impacted this shifting, by pushing these low-wage workers to move to another occupation which require different skills with high-wage brackets. This for individual, would be smooth, only if he/she is skill-oriented, capable of learning skills asap, said authors.
The cause for the scenario accuses the imbalance of work-demands in the society. Healthcare, e-commerce jobs valued more than of agriculture and retail and customer service jobs, to mention as an example.
The Report
The COVID-19 crisis has accelerated globally trending changes in the workplace, prompting consultant firm McKinsey & Company to raise its prediction for how many workers will likely need to switch jobs in the top eight economies by 12 percent.
This would add up to one in 16 workers having to change jobs in China, France, Germany, India, Japan, Spain, the United Kingdom and the U.S.
Who are affected more?
While results vary across the eight focus countries, researchers generally find that the largest net growth is likely to be in:
- Healthcare
- STEM
- Transportation jobs
The largest declines are projected to be in:
- Customer service jobs in retail and hospitality
- Food service
- Production work
- Office support roles
People in sectors having largest declines might be prone to be fired, and not able to find the relevant job, as the sector in whole would be declining, not just a particular company.
More than half of the low-wage workers in the declining sectors would be pushed to unemployment by 2030, estimates suggest. The only left option for them, is to shift to another profession with increased wage by developing the skills.
Who will be affected more?
So, speaking of low-wage workers, doesn’t mean all others are free of this change. As work from home impacted all the employees post-covid, this estimation would too have impact on individuals who fall under this category, mentioned below.
Women, ethnic minorities, young people and less-educated workers in the U.S. and Europe are more prone to this drastic change.
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Those who don’t have a college degree in the U.S are 1.3 times more likely than those with degrees to have to change occupations. Black and Hispanic workers in the country are 1.1 times more likely than white workers to enter a new occupation.
Epilogue
The pandemic “disruption” sped up three trends set to transform the global workforce, Bloomberg noted, including more remote work and working from home, more e-commerce for a larger “delivery economy” and more artificial intelligence and robot involvement in the workplace.
“The scale of workforce transitions set off by COVID-19’s influence on labor trends increases the urgency for businesses and policymakers to take steps to support additional training and education programs for workers,” the institute wrote.