JOBS

The Pandemic: Not an Equal Opportunity Unemployer

It’s become a symbol of the pandemic: The hedge fund manager escapes to the Hamptons while the Manhattan line cook, their restaurant empty, gets laid off. 

That image reflects a consistent pattern in COVID-19’s impact on the labor market. Lockdown restrictions disproportionately affected low-wage workers in the U.S., the numbers show. 

• 39% of employed people in households making less than $40k were furloughed or lost their job in March, the Fed calculated. In households making more than $100k...just 13% did. 

What’s driving that trend? 

Before the pandemic, an increasing number of American workers were in the business of “feeding, pampering, and caring for other Americans, especially wealthy ones,” the WSJ’s Christopher Mims writes. And it’s those same jobs—Uber drivers, building cleaning/security, hotel workers—that were most harmed by social distancing restrictions. 

• When higher-income people stop traveling, going to offices, or eating out, it creates a disastrous ripple effect for the workers employed in those services.
• And there are a lot of people doing this kind of work. 9.2% of U.S. employment was in food preparation and serving occupations in May 2019, according to a recent MIT paper by David Autor and Elisabeth Reynolds. 8.5% work in transportation.

Compounding the issue is telework. It’s well documented that higher-paying “knowledge” workers are able to transition to WFH far more easily than lower-paying services employees, meaning it’s easier to preserve knowledge economy jobs. 

Is any of this a good thing? 

After all, eliminating low-paying, vulnerable jobs might theoretically be a positive development because it could push people into more stable employment situations. Autor and Reynolds argue that it’s not. 

• For one, less demand for low-paying jobs does not mean a rise in demand for better-paying jobs that would employ the same people.
• There are also high costs associated with losing your job, forcing you to train and gain experience in another field.

Looking ahead...if the pandemic subsides and people start moving around again, lower-wage workers could return to the gains they’d been making pre-pandemic. But if growing trends like remote work and reduced business travel become permanent, it could shake up the labor market picture for decades.

HIRING

Job Postings: A Snapshot

The trend in job postings through Aug. 28 is down 20.2% from 2019, according to Indeed. 

A quick dive into the numbers:

• In hospitality & tourism and sports, job postings are stuck at least 40% below last year’s trend.
• Banking & finance and software development are also down 30%+. 
• Job postings in retail, interestingly, have only dropped 4.5%, while construction and loading & stocking have seen gains over last year.

GENDER

Working Moms’ Invisible Labor Crisis

This year, female unemployment hit double digits for the first time since the Bureau of Labor Statistics started tracking it in 1948. And women are leaving the workforce at a slightly higher rate than men, the WSJ writes.

It’s a stark contrast to December of last year, when women accounted for more than half of the workforce for just the second time in history. 

Supermoms can’t catch a break

Not only are women more likely than men to work as professional childcare givers, they’re more likely to take on caregiving duties at home, too. And that's where most of us have been spending our time lately. According to a BCG study...

• This spring, women were spending an average of 15 more hours on domestic labor than men were (65 vs. 50 hours). 
• Pre-pandemic, it was 35 vs. 25. 

With many schools indefinitely going remote and childcare facilities re-hiring at a slower rate than other sectors, moms are staring down 80+ hour “work weeks.” And that’s for women who have the option of working from home.

Bottom line: Experts worry this childcare crisis could widen the gender pay gap and stall wage growth for women. 

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HIRING

Welcome Aboard! Hope to Meet You Someday.

It’s been a few days since your last interview and you’re getting nervous. Then, an email shows up from the hiring manager. It begins, “Congratulations! I’m very pleased to offer you…” You don’t read any further. You just got a new job! 

If that’s happened to you in the 12 millennia six months since pandemic restrictions began, the hiring process was probably a little different than usual. Social distancing has redefined recruiting as much as Justin Timberlake redefined the word “me.” 

One example: The shift to WFH has allowed employers to broaden their potential talent pool exponentially. 

• The remote model can open up a "new world of qualified applicants,” writes Marilyn Tyfting, CCO of TELUS International. 
• The reverse is also true, Tyfting notes. “Candidates seeking work who previously overlooked firms that were unwilling or unable to accommodate remote work are now also throwing their proverbial hats in the ring.” 

But the internet is no silver bullet

Just ask privacy or print media or your attention span. The real trick is learning how to onboard new hires in the pandemic era. 

Introducing: The “culture buddy.” Employers such as SF personal finance firm Landed tried to help smooth the transition by pairing up new hires with a designated work friend, the WSJ reported. The reasoning: Company culture is perhaps the most startling aspect of a new job—and one of the hardest to absorb via Zoom. 

If nothing else, the great remote experiment has squeezed some valuable remote-hiring insights out of the circumstances, namely that you should overcommunicate and create a personalized onboarding plan for each employee.

Zoom out: The shift to remote has underscored the importance of HR—and what separates the good from the great in a people manager.

PIVOTS

It's So Crazy...It Just Might Work

When a pandemic closes one door, it opens several other, weirder doors. Here’s a quick rundown of the inventive ways people have made money during the coronavirus. 

The hustlers

Pivot Services Lead: When the owner of a hostel chain in Thailand realized tourism was going the way of the dodo, he mobilized his resources and expertise to move into adjacent industries, including food delivery and visa services.

Chief Fortune Teller: A senior at Vassar College turned her tarot-card reading hobby into a full-fledged online business, using an Etsy shop to help customers schedule appointments and TikTok for marketing. 

The reimaginers

VP of Moving and Shaking: As strip clubs across the country closed, dancers moved to Instagram Live to earn money, pinning their Cash App handles on the top of the feed to solicit donations.

Head of Home Cooking: A new food law in California allows people to operate licensed restaurants from inside their own homes. No word on how dishwashing duties will be handled. 

The only-in-a-pandemic-ers 

Pro Tracers: Pre-COVID, there were roughly 2,200 contract tracers in the U.S. Now, public health experts estimate we need more than 100,000 to help track down people who may have been exposed to the virus. Contact tracing academies have emerged to meet the increased demand.  

Farm Influencers: Faced with tough times, farmers have started posting videos of their daily lives to YouTube to supplement their income. Some popular titles from farmfluencer Morgan Gold: The Story of Margie the Murder Chicken, Puppy vs. Geese, and our personal favorite, Our Freakishly Huge Duck (This Is Not NORMAL.). 

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The art of the cold email: Brew writer Toby Howell got this job by sending a cold email to the cofounders, and he’s sharing his secret sauce with you. 

New opportunities: The remote work revolution was supposed to uncover new job opportunities for workers with disabilities. Did it live up to its promise? Brew writer Alex Hickey dives in. 

I lost my job to coronavirus: If so, here’s a free platform to help with resources and opportunities.

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STOCK EXCHANGE TRIVIA

If you're a veteran Brew reader, you knew this question was coming:

Labor Day is one of nine days on the calendar when the stock exchanges close in the U.S. Can you name the other eight? 

STOCK EXCHANGE TRIVIA ANSWER

New Years Day, MLK Jr. Day, Washington's Birthday, Good Friday, Memorial Day, Independence Day (July 4), Thanksgiving, Christmas.