Worker Trends Emerging From COVID

A number of trends are emerging from the two years of COVID for professional, grey collar and less so blue collar workers in the U.S. and abroad, with a strong divide between men and women. Below are the highlights:

• According to ZipRecruiter, Women are twice as likely to seek a work from home job than men (26 percent vs. 13 percent)
• There is now a much higher percentage of unemployed workers not searching urgently for new jobs with 4 primary reasons being:

- Spouse is employed (40% women vs. 18 percent men)

- Childcare coverage (35% women)

- COVID concerns (20 % men and women)

- Financially stable (28% men)

• Three-quarters of the 2 million women who quit during the pandemic have returned to the workforce, with 500,000 women still unemployed (500,000 of the 2MM were nurses).
• At #restaurants and #hotels, remote work is not an option. This further depletes the labor supply in these industries due to some workers finding at-home options
• According to the U.S. Labor Department, with 1/3 of all companies increasing WFH policies, 60 percent anticipate keeping these policies in place.
• According to U of Chicago study, 40% of women with kids would immediately start looking for a work from home job if asked to return to the office full-time and 7.3% said they would quit their current job without another job, nearly twice the rate of males.
• The economy is more productive, placing further pressure on increased wages at all levels. If the U.S. matches other developed countries female participation rate, this will add $1 trillion in gross domestic product over the next decade (source: Moody's)

For questions on labor and worker participation, particularly hourly labor, please contact Curt Johnson at @TalentReef at cjohnson@talentreef.com.