The SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 pandemic has been disruptive of various industries globally, due to the need for social distancing in the absence of effective vaccines and treatments in the first year and counting. As humanity has racked up losses, many people have been sidelined from the workforce, which was already under pressure with the incursions of high technology in the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR). To survive, people have had to raid savings, liquify whatever they have of value, and rely on family and friends and public charity to survive. Many have left bills unpaid, for rent, for auto loans, for credit card debt, and others. As the world slowly comes out of the pandemic, thanks to multiple effective vaccines (by BioNTech and Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, stateside), many are starting to reenter the job market, with varying outcomes. This work explores various career retooling paths in this moment based on content analysis of available formal and informal data. There is primary research from the Social Web.
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Workplaces have always been in a state of churn, with inflows and outflows of employees with varying tasks and positions, achieving various defined objectives, and advancing the work of the respective organizations. People have always had to work on building their respective skillsets and creating personal brands to communicate their value to work places. People have always had to adapt to new workplace realities, with globalization (which brings on more competitors from around the world), technological innovations (with people’s jobs being replaced by artificial intelligence and automation), and other challenges. The advent of the SARS-CoV-2 / COVID-19 pandemic (Oct. 2019 to present) is said to have accelerated many of the trends of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR), with human jobs replaced by machines and machine processing of information. Those in manufacturing are at especial risk of having their jobs lost to automation and so need to “continue, shift, or re-orient their career paths” (Chin, Li, Jiao, Addo, & Jawahar, 2019, p. 523). In the early summer of 2021, in the U.S., as more and more of the population are being vaccinated, employers are engaging the “arduous process of recalling their employees” (Klotz, May 30, 2021). Some market sectors have changed fundamentally while others less so. Even if it is not yet apparent, much of the world has shifted on its axis.
What makes coming out of a global pandemic, in fits and starts, so different? And how should these differences be understood for those in the present moment? What does it mean to be adaptive in this time and in the fluid job markets?
This work explores what career retooling may look like in a pandemic recovery phase and in an environment of technological incursions in the job market. Initial reports suggest that women have borne an undue burden in this pandemic, with many who have left the workplace permanently to care for children. People are coming out of the pandemic less fit, in many cases, having avoided healthcare visits and not following doctor’s guidance for various health issues and getting insufficient exercise. Some who have had the infection may be experiencing COVID-19 “long hauler” syndrome, with various continuing effects on various parts of the body: the brain, the heart, and so on.
After a year and a half of web conferencing, there are concerns about how colleagues may interact in person. After a year and a half of public health warning against interacting with others within six feet and in doors, and seeing so many become ill and many die, there is a sense that many have post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and social anxieties. At the same time that the larger economy and work environments have changed, people are facing up to the brevity of life and their own mortality. They are struggling with a sense of lack of trust of others, whether fellow citizens or health professionals or government, or even all the prior. Perhaps some want meaningful work, or their goals have changed, and they want different things from life. Work may have been displaced from life’s center, and perhaps personal or other goals have come to the fore.
Some sectors that were undergoing pressure, some in the coal mining industry, for example, have dwindled further. Supply chain interruptions have meant workplace interruptions, such as in car manufacturing. Restaurants and bars, casinos, and other locales long closed due to the health risks of close proximity to other people without sufficient masking have reopened to great fanfare. Tourism is starting up again. Institutions of higher education are still reeling from drops in enrollments.
Some are predicting a powerful rebound and burgeoning economy that is rising from enforced torpor. Others suggest that rampant inflation is on the horizon due to the government stimulus payment and pent-up demands and excess liquidity. In this crucial moment, there are efforts by government leaders to fund infrastructure buildouts, which may mediate the near- and mid-future present. In some locales, universal basic income is being provided by the government to citizens, for a time, to lower the pressure to go out to work and potentially become exposed to SARS-CoV-2 (the pathogenic virus) and COVID-19 (the disease caused by the virus).