Economic & Job Market Phenomena to Ponder Post-pandemic

Yogi Berra is noted for saying "It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future." Predicting labor market demand was difficult enough before the Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent lock downs. While the long-term impact of Covid-19 on future labor markets is unclear, planners must confront several changes to the future of work. Economist and Author Richard Froeschle has thought through several trends that may shape the future.

This discussion offers a few thoughts on trends and behaviors that may be more permanently shaped by the events of 2020. Specifically, the focus of this report is on how these trends will impact worker preparation, and which industries and occupations will be most influenced.

Futurist and Megatrends author John Naisbitt once remarked, “The most reliable way to forecast the future is to try to understand the present.” With the COVID-19 pandemic, we have witnessed the emergence of some new practices, many of which were already evolving, with others unique to the times.

(https://txcte.org/sites/default/files/resources/documents/Life%2520After%2520Covid%2520Final%2520April%25202021%2520low%2520res.pdf)

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This white paper considers 15 phenomena that have captured the headlines in 2020 and likely will get increased attention as the world turns toward economic recovery and beyond.

1. Welcome to the less-than-full economy.
2. Global supply chains will be reexamined with greater emphasis on domestic and local markets, and perhaps renewed emphasis on reshoring industries critical to national defense and self-sufficiency.
3. Online retailing will continue to accelerate, speeding up the decline of brick-and-mortar retail stores, many of which will be forced to move online in order to survive.
4. Social conventions and interactions will change, including the death of the handshake, the hug and the buffet, and the rise of plexiglass barriers.
5. School may never be the same: Back to campus or cyberspace?
6. Teleworking or work from home arrangements will become more commonplace after the pandemic. But the skills required for success include huge doses of employability skills, including time management and digital hard skills, even for entry-level jobs.
7. It’s all about skills! Degrees still matter, but it’s skills that really count. So what’s a “skill” and what makes a focused bundle of them just as important as a degree or credential?
8. Public sector budget woes will emerge. Who is going to pay for all this? When the private sector sneezes, the government gets a cold.
9. The world is in recession too! COVID-19 has been a global pandemic, causing recession in most countries.
10. The stay-at-home culture: New forms of digital entertainment emerge. If we’re not personally interacting, then we’re spending more time at home. And that usually means more time in front of a computer or television screen.
11. The end of paper? An accelerating pace in digital transformation. A real digital economy starts with new technology that drives fresh, innovative processes. This has been happening for some time, but the need to interact with colleagues and customers exclusively online through digital media has rapidly accelerated this transformation.
12. Building the new infrastructure: The kids ate all my bandwidth. At-home people still need to reach out, and the internet is the web that connects us all. Expect greater emphasis on a build-out of digital telecommunication networks (5G technology), extension of those networks to last-mile customers — especially to reach rural students — and demands for improved network performance.
13. Are robots the answer? The increasing use of robots in a post-pandemic world.
14. Small business suffers while the gig economy flourishes. The pandemic has disparately affected the service sector, notably retail, leisure and hospitality, and personal services. These industries have a higher proportion of small businesses that have been traumatized by the economic lockdowns.
15. Will we hire, how we hire, who we hire: A new perspective on hiring practices.