{"id":2406,"date":"2020-04-27T04:56:49","date_gmt":"2020-04-27T01:56:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kusuaks7\/?p=2011"},"modified":"2023-12-13T16:38:10","modified_gmt":"2023-12-13T16:38:10","slug":"the-coronavirus-is-creating-an-inflection-point-in-the-future-of-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.experfy.com\/blog\/future-of-work\/the-coronavirus-is-creating-an-inflection-point-in-the-future-of-work\/","title":{"rendered":"The Coronavirus Is Creating An Inflection Point In The Future Of Work"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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HEATHER E MCGOWAN<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cMost of us can remember who we were 10 years ago<\/em>,\u00a0but we find it hard to imagine who we\u2019re going to be, and then we mistakenly think that because it\u2019s hard to imagine, it\u2019s not likely to happen.\u201d\u00a0<\/em>\u00a0<\/h4>\n

\u00a0Dan Gilbert, TED Talk 2014<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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On September 10, 2001, no one would have imagined the events of the following morning, events that are now tragically etched in our minds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Similarly, no one would have predicted last November or even December the seismic shifts in political and economic policy that are unfolding now. The\u00a0Financial Times<\/a>\u00a0is advocating\u00a0for\u00a0some form of universal basic income in the United States<\/a>.\u00a0The US government is sending\u00a0$1,200 checks to 80% of Americans<\/a>.\u00a0Gig workers are getting sick pay<\/a>.\u00a0Car insurance companies may send you a check due<\/a>\u00a0to sudden a decline in auto accidents.\u00a0\u00a0Some are even arguing that providing\u00a0healthcare for everyone in certain circumstances<\/a>\u00a0may be in our collective best interest,\u00a0\u00a0that the federal minimum wage should be pushed\u00a0\u00a0up to $17.00<\/a>\u00a0from the current $7.25.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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It is already clear that, as I have written previously, that the\u00a0coronavirus global pandemic is accelerating our adaptation to the future of work<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0And, it seems that coronavirus pandemic is also forming a social safety net that could reshape our future of work<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most strikingly, this crisis is presenting the third existential challenge of the last fifty years. The first is climate change, the second income inequality, and the third is this global pandemic brought on by the latest novel coronavirus. Each of these challenges are reshaping work in some way, but it is this third test, one that is freezing our economy and forcing job losses for many and job changes for all, that will require our response to all three. We will either emerge in a post pandemic world with clear answers to climate change, income inequality, and global health or we will find ourselves with greater inequality and declining collective health.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n

My hope is the former, and to understand how we might emerge, it is helpful to understand how we arrived where we are and what this global pandemic may just change, for the better.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Income Inequality And The Employee\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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In 2014, I wrote a series called\u00a0Jobs Are Over: The Future Is Income Generation<\/a>\u00a0in which I suggested we start thinking more entrepreneurially about our ability to learn, adapt, and generate resources rather than simply codifying and transferring existing knowledge and predetermined skills in order to create a deployable workforce.\u00a0\u00a0In\u00a0part four of that series<\/a>, I described how our current work structures, specifically the role of the employee with all requisite benefits, emerged from the\u00a0\u00a0Stabilization Act of 1942<\/a>\u00a0in which President Roosevelt, in effort to stave off inflation, fixed salaries and wages leaving employers to offer other benefits like health insurance and retirement to attract top talent. This worked well for a few decades when most of us enjoyed those employee benefits.\u00a0<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Then,\u00a0Milton Friedman declared<\/a>–<\/a>\u00a0that the only social responsibility of a business is to return profits to shareholders, a declaration that fueled the\u00a0merger mania of the 1980s<\/a>. This period also marked the great decoupling of\u00a0GDP per worker from median household income<\/a>, which simply means workers were increasingly productive yet did not share the gains proportionately. In the shadows of the Global Financial Crisis of 2008, enabled by tectonic shifts in technological capabilities, we saw\u00a0the rise of the gig economy.<\/a>\u00a0The Friedman doctrine and merger mania together stripped benefits from employees while higher productivity and the availability of the gig economy reduced corporate employment across the board.\u00a0At the same time workers found\u00a0less social mobility<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0higher education cost skyrocketed<\/a>, placing a debt burden on a new generation of workers. Each of these moves was driven by the notion that human talent was a cost to contain rather than an asset to develop\u2014in my view, one of worst human-made, unforced errors in history.\u00a0\u00a0We have prioritized hoarding assets made in the past over investing in spawning a new generation of taxpayers equipped to create new resources.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t“Nonemployer First and Employment 1997-2014\nThe Coronavirus Is Creating An Inflection Point In The Future Of Work”\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Nonemployer First and Employment 1997-2014\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>METROPOLITAN POLICY PROGRAM AT BROOKINGS<\/small><\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t“Freelancer’s Union and Upwork Believe The Majority of Workers Will Be Freelance in 7 years”\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Freelancer’s Union and Upwork Believe The Majority of Workers Will Be Freelance in 7 years\u00a0\u00a0FREELANCER’S UNION<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Image Source: Freelancing in America: Freelancer\u2019s Union and Upwork<\/p>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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This has left us, today, with the\u00a0highest levels of income inequality in the last fifty years<\/a>. The\u00a0United States is\u00a0the most unequal of all developed nations<\/a>. What does this mean and why should you care, especially if you are in the minority enjoying greater gains? Even if you are not motivated by your fellow Americans\u2019 well-being, you might want to think more long term about your own, and perhaps more acutely, your children\u2019s futures. Rising income inequality results in lower economic growth,\u00a0research by the World Economic Forum<\/a>\u00a0found specifically that,\u00a0\u201cOverall, our empirical results provide support for the hypothesis that income inequality is beneficial to economic growth in poor countries, but that it is detrimental to economic growth in advanced economies.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0That is where we are with income inequality in the United States pre-virus.\u00a0Now the global pandemic shines a new spotlight on the liability for all of us in these inequities.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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US GDP Per Capita vs. Real Median Income\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>FRED<\/small><\/p>\n\n\n\n

From Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository<\/p>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Our Inequities Are Undeniable<\/strong><\/h2>\n<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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While we say we are in this pandemic together and that the virus does not distinguish between race, class, political party, or income, that is not entirely true. How we experience this quarantine\u00a0varies greatly based upon income<\/a>,\u00a0and\u00a0both infection rates and fatality are wildly different based upon race.<\/a>\u00a0These disparities are not based in genetics but rather in the inequities in access to our healthcare system (underlining health conditions), housing density (propensity to spread), and those who work on the front lines from grocery store workers to delivery folks to hospital workers (exposure). The virus could either exacerbate these inequities or we could see this as a moment, born of necessity, to re-knit our long-lost social safety net to enable more of us to contribute meaningfully to our society and economy and thereby release more of our collective human potential. As we begin discussions of lifting or lessoning quarantines to restart our economy will we reduce front line worker pay to pre-virus levels? Will we retract the two-week paid sick leave offered to minimize the spread of the coronavirus? Will we remove the access to and coverage for healthcare offered in this crisis?\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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African Americans by percentage of population and share of coronavirus deaths\u00a0\u00a0WASHINGTON POST. SOURCES: JOHN HOPKINS UNIVERSITY, STATE HEALTH DEPARTMENTS, AMERICAN COMMUNITY SURVEY<\/span><\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Fifty Years of Climate Change Warnings<\/strong><\/h2>\n<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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We have had ample warnings about climate change for more than fifty years. The\u00a0Keeling Curve<\/a>, measuring CO2 in the atmosphere, has skyrocketed since it was first developed in 1958.\u00a0The first earth day<\/a>\u00a0was in 1970. In 1988,\u00a0NASA Scientist Dr. James Hansen testified before the Senate<\/a>\u00a0that the planet was warming, and human behavior was the cause. In 2006, former Vice President Al Gore won an Academy Award for his climate crisis warning\u00a0An Inconvenient Truth<\/em><\/a>. And most recently,\u00a0Greta Thunberg<\/a>, catalyzed a global youth movement of activism for climate change that gave her audience at the United Nations and The World Economic Forum, and landed her a\u00a0Nobel Peace Prize nomination<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Time\u00a0Magazine<\/em>\u00a0Person of the Year<\/a>\u00a0honors in 2020. All these warnings, all this attention, and we have not changed our behaviors. The five hottest years on record were the last five years and the ten hottest on record were in the last fifteen years.\u00a0The World Bank Estimates\u00a0we may have 143 million climate migrants<\/a>\u00a0by 2050 up from 22-24 million today. Per a recent article in\u00a0the Guardian<\/a>,\u00a0\u201cInsurers have warned that climate change could make coverage for ordinary people unaffordable after the\u00a0<\/em>world\u2019s largest reinsurance<\/em><\/a>\u00a0firm blamed global warming for $24bn (\u00a318bn) of losses in the Californian wildfires.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Keeling Curve\u00a0SCRIPPS OCEANOGRAPHIC INSTITUTE<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As we pause our economy, shutter our factories, restaurants, sporting events, and concerts, we both drive and fly less\u00a0we are\u00a0temporarily reducing our carbon output.<\/a>\u00a0Some of this will reverse when we restart the economy as we will inevitably reconnect and remap supply chains, resume our daily activities, but we may just take this pause as a moment to decide which activities to curb or change in favor of better climate stability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n