A Council on Foreign Relations panel recently considered
the future of work after COVID-19. That is, of course, if there
will be a world without the virus any time in coming years.
The Council’s Ted Alden hit the nail on the head when he
said that “a fundamental conversation about the social contract is long
overdue, especially around inequality and support for lower-income workers.”
He’s right, of course, but this country has little capacity for such a conversation let alone enacting policies
needed to help working people. Without systemic change, one political party will continue
to hurt the unemployed, underemployed, working poor and middle class and the small businesses who need them both as employees and customers.
The panelists stressed that COVID-19 will only increase
the widening gap between knowledge workers who, according to Alden, “can sit in
LA and (virtually) work in London” and the folks who have no choice but to work
in person in physical, low-wage jobs. He added that “40 to 45 percent of jobs
literally cannot be done remotely.”
McKinsey’s James Manyika considered trends such as an
acceleration of the ongoing rush to automation in industries from food service
to mining and consumer behavioral changes that will increase demand for services such as telemedicine and remote learning.
Jody Miller of the Business Talent Group added that
businesses will move from emphasizing resiliency over efficiency and, in that
context, will hire more remote and work-from-home staff. Everyone is saying this,
but it sounds like an overreaction to the current moment. Businesses are not
likely to move away from bottom-line efficiency any time soon. And sure, more
high-end workers will telecommute, but that number will not be massively higher
in five or 10 years.
Alden also observed that the reconfiguration of global
supply chains will accelerate. This means that buying from China to save a few
cents per unit may not be all that it was cracked to up to be. No kidding. “Supply chains
were starting regionalize anyway as business geography changes,” he said.
The panelists added that the cross-border movement of
people will decrease, driven by declines in business travel, foreign students
and immigration. Alden said that the cross-border movement of data flows are
already exploding, however, and will accelerate even more.
Image courtesy of DWIH New York.