How will the pandemic change jobs — and who will be left behind?

this is um my story. I live in a suburb of Boston, Massachusetts, and I was furloughed from my job on March nine. Hi. My name is Nicole Daniel UM from Chapel Hill, North Carolina. I was informed at the beginning of April they, due to the economic downturn associated with coronavirus, the field marketing team that I'm a member of with being eliminated. Hi. My name is Bart Nelson and I am from St. Louis, Missouri. My husband was

laid off from his company after fifteen years. It has been difficult, and you know, neither one of us have ever lost our jobs before, so this is this is all new road for us. Hi. My name is Nancy Rasmussen. I lost my job at Macy's. I live in Delaware, and right now, that seems to be the least of my problems. Throughout today's episode, we'll be hearing from some of the people behind these unprecedented numbers. But first let's

get some context on what makes them so unprecedented. Most of the estimates for the unemployment rates in April will be around the lines of right, and at the peak of the Great Depression, unemployment was maybe if you count all the people that were in work relief programs as unemployed. At the height of the Great Recession, we reached ten percent unemployment. So we're at the very start of this crisis and we're already seeing numbers that are accomparable to

the Great Depression. Victor tan Chen is assistant professor of sociology at Virginia Commonwealth University. He studies labor markets, unemployment, and social inequality. He's the author of the book Cut Loose, Jobless, and Hopeless in an Unfair Economy. He told me he's

never seen anything like this. The other thing, too, is that the Great Depression, Great Recession, those are financial crises, or at least they started as financial crises, and we've had a lot of experience dealing with financial crises, and we've kind of developed strategies in terms of monetary and fiscal policy to deal with them. This is like uncharted waters for us in terms of dealing with a pandemic where the economy has to shut down in order for

it to save itself later on. Right, this is a new kind of phenomenon, and so we're trying to figure things out as we go policy wise, which leads me to my next question, how will the coronavirus pandemic change

our economic futures? When we talk about unemployments and unemployment policy, timing is everything right, and and the speed by which this is happening is really concerning because we need to get support to these households right away, because what we know from unemployment is that its spirals and spirals in terms of its psychological family and economic consequences. Victor tan Chen says, all this can put a tremendous strain on relationships, and the longer this goes on, the more dire the

financial consequences. If we're going to stop some of those negative outcomes from a current, we need to introduce immediate relief, and we and you know, to its credit, Congress past legislation really quickly to deal with that and to top

up some of the benefits for unemployment. Unfortunately, many states have been slow to provide that aid, and so we we see in many states a huge backlog in terms of benefits, and the expansions that were supposed to help on these precariously employed workers like gig workers haven't even begun. So I think timing is really essential in this to

prevent the crisis from spiraling out of control. Some of the hardest hit sectors of the economy, like leisure, hospitality, and the service industry, tend to employ people without college degrees, people of color, immigrants, and those already living on less, making this unemployment crisis particularly unfair. The Federal Reserve said in two thousand seventeen that you know, four and anten Americans did not have enough money. It's saved up to cover a four hundred dollar expense of four h indre

dollar emergency. And so you have a large second population that is already living paycheck to paycheck, and suddenly this happens, devastating the sectors where they're concentrated in and uh, that's leading to a lot of hardship that hopefully government policies can ameliorate to some extent, but it's unsure how long that support will last. There are also so many small businesses.

Now small business owners are in one category, but the people who work for small businesses, they've also been hard hit, have they not? Yes, And that is a major problem right now, is that, uh, you know, the small businesses. There are main street businesses, restaurants and bars and you know, various establishments. They don't have the kind of reserves to you know, weather the storm of this economic crisis, and so you're seeing them lay off their workers, you know,

rather than keeping them on. Now there's some supports, you know that the government has provided to kind of keep that payroll going for a bit, but you know, access to that has been spotty so far. And I imagine what we'll see is a lot of these businesses failing and a more consolidation in those sectors where Amazon or Walmart or someone whoever already really devastated you know, main streep America in terms of these small businesses taking more

and more of the share of those markets. There's also the precarious workforce that you describe as people who are doing jobs that don't have much security or have part time jobs, so they're not counted in the unemployment figures and they don't have benefits. So tell us about this

whole segment of the workforce that you term precarious. We're talking here about workers who don't have the kind of long term, full time employment that we associated with jobs, typical traditional jobs, right where there's some kind of implicit contract between employers and workers that you know that they will stay there for a long time and and and and work years at a particular company that has disappeared. And you have instead a lot of workers who are

just working on gigs. Maybe they're classified as independent contractors. They do certain projects for an employer, and then they basically have the conditions of being real employees in terms of how their work is dictated and and manage. But the employers don't have to pay them benefits, don't have to have any long term relationship with them, can get

rid of them whenever they want to. And so you have increasing segment of the population about ten according to some measures, that are fall into this category of either you know, freelancers by choice or these kind of independent contractors. Uh not involuntarily because companies have decided they don't want a full time, a long term relationship with them. So you have this segment of the population that has been

growing in recent years. And and gig workers like the uber drivers and uh insta cart delivery people and so on are a segment of this, but that don't really have much in the way of protections or strength within their bargaining positions in the labor market. And part of that, too is the client of unions that used to provide a voice for these workers and kind of negotiated the full time, long term employment contracts of the past that have disappeared now that unions have dwindled to a faction

of their former selves. Christ and Trump boasted about how strong the economy was prior to the crisis, And I know unemployment was low, but does that tell the whole story. No, because what we have seen in recent decades is a lot of folks have simply dropped out of the labor market,

dropped out of the labor force. Uh, they're no longer looking for work in recent weeks because perhaps they've just given up on finding a decent job anymore than said they go on disability benefits or some of them have gone back to school. But that's a small percentage of the group that is uh, really what we're looking at of of prime age workers who are suddenly out of

the labor force. And we actually saw before of the COVID crisis, we saw some of the lowest rates of labor force participation since the nineteen seventies, right, So we had this problem beforehand of large segments of the population, including prime age men, who had dropped out, and by some measures, their rates of participation in the economy were as low as they were at the tail and the

Great Depression. Right. So that's the kind of invisible crisis that we had because those individuals aren't counted for in our unemployment statistics, right. They they've dropped out of labor markets. Uh, they're not looking in the last four weeks for work, which is how we define the unemployed. And so we've had this kind of hidden problem that was masked by the increases in the stock markets and and the low

unemployment rates and so on. And it's also related to things like the opioid crisis that has been going on as well. Um, you know, there's just a lot of economic despair that is concentrated in working class communities, many of them are white communities in America's heartland that have seen a loss of those good, pain often unionized jobs that were the backbone of the American middle classrooms so

long and that have disappeared. So we need to also recognize that these trends have been going on for quite some time, even before the crisis. When we come back, how jobs will forever change after COVID and who might be left behind? No financial crisis, no recession has hit the US this hard or this suddenly, and the impact of the economic tsunami caused by the coronavirus is likely to reverberate through the labor market long after COVID nineteen

leaves US, if it ever does. But Victor tan Chen says it's not just a question of when the economy will open up again, but who and how many will

be left behind when it does. What is more troubling is that there's going to be a large segment people who don't get rehired right, and they're gonna they tend to be older workers, right, who are costly for pay rolls, and so employers once they let go of workers are going to rehire cheaper workers, right, or they're going to impose certain technologies that reduce the noun and workers they need.

So you're gonna have the economy is gonna eventually return where you're gonna have a segment of population who are cut loose and who uh probably won't be able to reconnect with the labor market later on. And so that's the population particularly worried about because we saw in two thousand and eight the emergence of this long term unemployee population, many of who eventually left the labor force and are

kind of contributed to our larger joblesness this problem. But that's probably going to happen in this regard to even after the economy recovers, so a lot of people may retire earlier than they anticipated. And also it's aims to me that employers are going to have to space out employees, They may not have room to have employees. There will be more people working from home. How do you see that figuring into sort of the workforce of the future

of the immediate future. Well, first of all, it's important to recognize just how unequal um internet accesses in our country. A federal communication Commission. You know report from two thousand seventeen says that thirty percent of American households don't have access to even a slow broadband connection. Right, So that's a large segment of population that is uh, you know, looking on their phones to access the internet, or just just have a substandard access to it. So that presents problems.

And so much of you know, job seeking is online now, and uh, I think that's going to create issues for workers, especially given that it will be hard or you know, for them perhaps too you know, hit the pavement to find jobs. It's also important just to note that for those who are able to telework, there's huge class and racial divides in that regard as well. You know. Half one estimate says that about half of those workers who have college degrees are able to telework compared to about

fiftent of those without college degrees. Right, Uh, so there's big differences. There's big racial differences in terms of African Americans and Latinos uh being less able to do that. So, um so if we move to jobs increasingly that requires social distancing and require teleworking, certain segments who tend to have less education, who tend to have lower incomes are going to be left out of that new economy that's

emerging out of these new needs. And I just want to underscore two that unemployment is not a negligible or trivial now or it leaves scars for people, both psyschological and economic. Right. Uh, it's comparable to other crises like the death of a loved one or divorce in terms of the real impact and permanent impact it has on

people's well being. Now when everyone is employed, Uh, those kind of Uh, that kind of impact is lessened, right because you know, people understand that they're all in this together. But it still has these pretty profound consequences for individuals and their families. And we should be worried about that because it's going to be part of our reality for quite some time. This this spike and unemployment. It can have devastating effects and a ripple effect on people's mental health.

But it also seems to me that it's the kind of thing that foments a revolution of sorts. Yeah, we stay at a kind of important moments in our politics, like which direction do we take some of the fear and anxiety that everyone is feeling right now? Do we channel it in a certain political direction. How are we

going to respond to this. Are we going to respond collectively as a nation recognizing the fault lines that this this crisis has suddenly made visible to us within our labor market, or are we going to respond as we did in past crisis? In two thousand and eight is a good reminder of this, where yes, there was aid in beginning their support. There was some sense that we're all in this together at first, and then suddenly the

narrative change. Right, It was about how, you know, people were being profligate and irresponsible and that was driving some of the joblessness we were seeing. You know that that led to the rise of the Tea Party, right, this sense to that government was bailing out still called losers or so people that had uh, you know, over extending themselves at the expense of ordinary Americans. So you could

see the possibility of a divisive narrative emerging. And then that's going to stop some of the necessary steps in terms of providing that base of unemployment benefits and other sorts of support that are essential to keep those not only keep those households solvent, but also to inject some more spending in our economy. While things are installed so that uh, you know, employers don't collapse because of the

lack of consumer demand. Right, So all those things are necessary, and unless we have the political will to push forward these policies and extend them as long as they're needed, we're going to pay some long term consequences for that. Hi. My name is Kathleen and I've worked at the dental Hygenisen California for almost forty years. I'm almost sixty five. I have to underlying health conditions and I don't know when it's going to be safe for me to go

back to work. I can't really look too far in the future otherwise it's uh, it's really stressful thinking, you know what, what's going to happen where we are a dual income family and need to need to stay that way. I can't even look at my retirement funds. I know that it will show that I won't be able to retire when I wanted to in three years. Um, my retirement could be forced now, but I don't think my funds will last a long time. Just gig for the future.

I don't have a movie when we come back how we can help each other in these desperate Times. Hi. My name as Many booker Um and I'm from Westfield, New Jersey and have been the program jector for a nonprofit grief support center for almost eight years. When COVID nineteen appeared, we quickly realized that we were going to have to pivot the way that we provide grief support

to our over four hundred participants. It only took a matter of days to get our first calls from people who had a fame family member who had died from the illness, and they were looking for a whole different level of support because the typical rachels and supports that people received after a death were not available to them. There were no in person weeks to those funerals. There were no family and friends coming over to sit with them, cooked meals and cry together. It was very overwhelming for

us as care providers. I honestly wasn't sure how much rightcarious trauma I would be able to tolerate. But then I was furloughed, and as much as the need was there, the money was not. Besides the obvious anxiety that I feel about potentially losing my job permanently, I feel the most sad about not being able to support the fans I have worked with for so long and as more people that due to this illness. I long to be

able to support them as well. I feel like I have something to offer during this pandemic, but I'm not allowed to and that to be a loss for me as well. Before I wrapped up with Victor Tanshen, I asked what good, if any, might come from this experience. He said, the most heartening lesson is perhaps that we found strength and solidarity that we can do better with a greater sense of community. We can respond to this

with a sense of compassion and grace. Right we could respond to this with the understanding that life is not a competition. That the threat to our own mortality kind of crystallizes for us what really matters in our lives and how important things that we take for granted, like going to out our data day lives are to us. So we could use this as a moment of reflection. I think that a lot of Americans are doing that

right now. They're writing in their isolation journals, and they're thinking about big picture things and using this moment to reconnect with people around them. They're realizing that the kind of competition of status and wealth that we're so engaged in is somewhat paltry and petty in the in the grand scheme of things, we could use this as a source of motivation inspiration to be uh, you know, a

better country. And it really depends on leadership, and it depends on people standing up and making sure that their leaders do the right thing in that regard. That was Victor tan Chen, who teaches sociology at Virginia Commonwealth University and is the author of Cut Loose, Jobless, and Hopeless in an Unfair Economy. I'd like to acknowledge all the people who have written in and called in with their stories.

In this podcast, you heard the voices of Megan Ghazari, Nicole Daniels, Barbed Nelson, Nancy Rasmussen, Kathleen Lange, Mandy Sucker, and Amy Stewart. Hi. My name is Amy Stewart. I really don't know what is going to come next. One thing is for sure. I'm definitely at a cross roads. Well, it is hard, and I am a certain I know somehow we'll figure this out too. I grew up hearing stories from my grandparents about it was like for them

to live through the depression. I think of them, I think of my parents, I think of my friends, and I think of my husband and I and all of the things that we've vanished to get through before this. One day, this too will be in my review mirror, and I will sit around and tell our story to

our grandkids. In the past tense, there were so many more that we heard from who are struggling, uncertain about their future, or trying to stay positive despite everything, And I just wanted to say I am so sorry for what you all are going through and so appreciate your sharing your experiences with us. Please continue to write in, call in, reach out on social media. We may all be isolating right now, but we're definitely not alone. And that does it for this week's episode of Next Question.

For the most up to date information on the coronavirus, please visit the CDC and World Health Organization websites. You can also subscribe to my morning newsletter wake Up Call, where we'll be profiling those affected by the pandemic. You'll also be able to see some of those profiles on my social media accounts Instagram, Facebook, and all the rest. Until next time and my Next Question, I'm Katie Couric, Thanks so much for listening. Stay safe and try to

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