Two years on from the start of the coronavirus pandemic, the workplace remains in a state of severe disruption. The economy has 4 million more jobs than workers to fill them. Employees are quitting in large numbers. Companies are finding it hard to find workers. Wages are rising at an annual average of about 5%.
Rewind back to March 2020, when millions suddenly found themselves forced from their offices to a life of remote work. Or worse, consider the 20.5 million who joined the unemployment rolls in April of that year.
The recovery in the labor market has been historic, with the unemployment rate now at 3.8%, not far from the record 3.5% in the pre-pandemic month of February 2020. Last month, some 678,000 new jobs were added on top of 467,000 in January.
But the past two years have revealed some basic truths about the workplace, ones that may endure well past the anniversary of the pandemic.
For years, employees took a backseat within companies as firms prioritized profits and wages struggled to maintain pace with inflation that was historically low. Companies favored automation, offshoring work to low-cost countries and maintaining lean payrolls.
But, once the economy began to recover from the pandemic at a rate that surprised most businesses, gaps began to be exposed and some of them were the size of sinkholes. Suddenly, the garbage was not getting picked up, restaurants could not staff up, parents could not find day care and low-income workers such as delivery drivers,…
