These three industries worry most about returning to the workplace

When Charlie Menghetti steps onto a building site, there isn’t much that worries him. He’s been taking notice of safety rules since starting his own construction business in Modesto, Calif., more than 20 years ago. Even in a pandemic -- aside from an obligatory squirt of hand sanitizer when he arrives onsite -- everything is business as usual. 

It’s a different story, however, for those working in education, entertainment or retail. Those sectors involve crowded indoor spaces, as well as a lot more close, face-to-face interaction. As a result, according to LinkedIn’s latest Workforce Confidence Index survey, people in those three industries tend to be a lot more anxious about returning to the workplace.

As the chart below shows, fully 75% of people working in retail say they are concerned about exposure to others who aren’t taking safety seriously, according to the Workforce Confidence poll. Those same worries exist for 73% of respondents in entertainment and 71% of those in education. 

In nearly all other industries, exposure to others is a worry for less than 70% of respondents. Manufacturing reports the lowest industry score of all, at 54%. This Workforce Confidence data reflects the responses of 10,163 professionals from June 1 through June 28. 

In the most stressed industries, pressure is mounting to delay the resumption of usual work. In Florida, teacher’s unions have sued to block Gov. Ron DeSantis’s school-reopening order. In Colorado, teachers have said they mightn’t return to work unless their criteria for reopenings are met. 

Even in Utah, as reported by the Deseret News, a teachers’ group has publicly warned that school reopening standards are “fundamentally inadequate to address the hazards presented by COVID-19.”

The entertainment industry is having similar problems. In the interests of safety, Hollywood has tried everything from Plexiglass barriers on its sets to the use of dolls in kissing scenes. Even such extreme adjustments aren’t enough. In mid-July, as the Los Angeles Times reported, filming for daytime shows such as “The Bold and the Beautiful” largely stopped. 

Meanwhile, some retailers that had reopened stores briskly in the spring, when COVID-19 cases appeared to be on a lasting downswing, have reversed course and are closing up some locations again. Among them is Apple, which recently told workers at some of those now-closed stores to concentrate on working remotely instead. 

Stress levels remain high in the recreation and travel sector, too, which includes restaurants, hotels, casinos and sports teams. The Workforce Confidence survey found more than 20% of respondents in those industries voiced primary concerns about each of these three factors: lack of safety guidelines, lack of protective tools and equipment, and deficiencies in sanitization and cleanliness. Only 18% said they had no concerns.

Just this week, the Miami Marlins baseball team has been forced to cancel games, amid news that many of its players have tested positive for COVID-19. “We think we can keep things safe and continue to play,” baseball commissioner Rob Manfred maintained Monday night. “It’s not a positive thing, but I don’t see it as a nightmare.” 

In many other parts of the U.S. economy, the return to the workplace is much smoother. Judy Marks, chief executive of Otis Worldwide, told investors this week that all of her factories are operating again and 90% of Otis’s installation sites are humming, up from a low of 65% earlier in the year. 

In general, LinkedIn’s Workforce Confidence survey found tensions were lowest in construction, manufacturing and consumer goods. In those fields, at least 25% of those surveyed said they have no concerns about returning to the workplace. By contrast, in education, retail and entertainment, only 11% to 12% reported “no concerns.”  

Adequate cleanliness and sanitization standards are a big issue for jobs involving a lot of face-to-face contact with other people. That's a list that ranges from kindergarten teachers to finance professionals on Wall Street's big trading desks.

The Workforce Confidence survey found that sanitization concerned at least 30% of people in education, finance and entertainment. By contrast, that rate dropped into the teens for health care, legal, manufacturing and nonprofits. It affected just 12% of people in energy and mining. 

Workforce Confidence Index Methodology

LinkedIn’s Workforce Confidence Index is based on a quantitative online survey that is distributed to members via email every two weeks. Roughly 5,000+ U.S.-based members respond each wave. Members are randomly sampled and must be opted into research to participate. Students, stay-at-home partners and retirees are excluded from analysis so we can get an accurate representation of those currently active in the workforce. We analyze data in aggregate and will always respect member privacy. 

Data is weighted by engagement level, to ensure fair representation of various activity levels on the platform. The results represent the world as seen through the lens of LinkedIn’s membership; variances between LinkedIn’s membership & overall market population are not accounted for. Confidence index scores are calculated by assigning each respondent a score (-100, -50, 0, 50, 100) based on how much they agree or disagree with each of three statements, and then finding the composite average score across all statements. Scores are averaged across two waves of data collection to ensure an accurate trend reading. The three statements are: [Job Security] I feel confident about my ability to get or hold onto a job right now; [Finances] I feel confident about my ability to improve my financial situation in the next 6 months; [Career] I feel confident about my ability to progress in my career in the next year.

 Neil Basu and Ben Tjaden from LinkedIn Market Research contributed to this article.