A report published by McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) assesses the lasting impact of the global COVID-19 pandemic on labour demand, job mix and professional skills required in eight countries with diverse economic and labour market models: China, France, Germany, India, Japan, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States.
The document is based on the assumption that the COVID-19 pandemic has for the first time increased the importance of the physical dimension of work (compared to the pre-pandemic period, the biggest disruption of work included new technologies and growing business links). The document therefore examines how pandemic accelerated trends can be remodelled in the long term. It examines these changes in the course of 2 030 in the eight countries mentioned above, with different economic and labour market patterns.
For the purpose of this research, the authors identified ten workspaces (medical care, personal care, customer interactions on site, leisure and travel, home assistance, production and indoor storage, IT office work, classroom and training, transport of goods and production and outdoor maintenance), bringing together occupations according to their proximity to collaborators and clients, the number of interpersonal interactions and their nature on site and inside buildings.
The main findings of this study show that more local jobs are likely to undergo a stronger transformation after the pandemic, leading to knock-on effects in other jobs in response to a change in business models. In addition, COVID-19 workplace disruptions are expected to be higher than expected in pre-pandemic research, in particular for the lowest-paid, lowest-educated and most vulnerable workers. Research estimates that more than 100 million workers in the eight countries we studied may have to change their occupations and face even greater skills gaps. The document therefore offers a number of long-term perspectives and calls for flexible and collaborative responses that could lead to higher productivity growth and create a career path with upward mobility of workers.
This report on the future of work after the COVID-19 pandemic is the first of the three MGI reports addressing aspects of the post-pandemic economy. Others address the long-term impact of the pandemic on consumption and the potential for large-scale recovery driven by increased productivity and innovation.