COVID-19 Monitor

Last Updated:October 15, 2020

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Governments puzzle over how to unwind job protection schemes (FT) Published on: August 21, 2020 | Category: Economic Impact, Global Response

A fresh surge in coronavirus cases is putting pressure on governments on both sides of the Atlantic to maintain emergency labour market support mechanisms at a time when politicians had hoped that their economies would be gradually returning to normal.
Many employees laid off temporarily at the start of lockdowns have returned to work, but millions have not, and job gains are slowing.
“This is slowly morphing into a long-term unemployment problem,” said Jay Shambaugh, a fellow at the Brookings Institution and former White House adviser, noting that 5 per cent of the US workforce had now been unemployed for more than 15 weeks.

Economists foresee an unemployment “tsunami” coming (Axios) Published on: August 21, 2020 | Category: Economic Impact

The exponential growth of claims for the Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC) program are worrying economists and previewing a weakening U.S. labor market in the coming months.
“The real tsunami is coming,” Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, tells Axios. “My guess is at this point hiring in the industries that have been hit hard is going to abate.”
“You’re starting to see unemployment spells last a long time. The longer you’re out of the labor force and disconnected from your prior employer, the harder it is to reconnect,” said Julia Coronado, president of MacroPolicy Perspectives.

How to Get Employees to Report Their Covid-19 Risk (HBR) Published on: August 21, 2020 | Category: Leadership

As the economy reopens, employers are striving to adopt policies and practices that protect their employees from contracting Covid-19. It’s an especially pressing concern, given that infections continue to surge in many states.
Ideally, employees would proactively report that they, or someone in their immediate environment, is experiencing early symptoms as soon as they suspect they may have been exposed. However, employees may not want to reveal that they are a contagion risk.
We have researched how safety violations and sexual harassment get reported in garment factories, as well as the effectiveness of different reporting protocols in generating actionable data. We believe that the lessons learned from those high-stakes contexts can help to ensure that workers to report potential Covid-19 exposure in a timely manner.

Big firms offer stressed parents new perks such as subsidized tutoring (Washington Post) Published on: August 20, 2020 | Category: Global Response, Leadership

Tech firms and other major corporations that have long offered family-friendly perks for their employees’ youngest children are adding new educational benefits to help with school-aged kids as working parents again face a school year juggling work and virtual learning.
A program initiated by discussions between Accenture and Bright Horizons, the child care center operator, and being adopted by Microsoft, Bank of America and Accenture, will offer employees of these corporate giants access to small-group, part-time, “school-day supervision” at a heavily subsidized cost.
It is one of a fast-growing range of benefits some employers are starting to offer working parents struggling with the crushing stress and financial burden of work and virtual school.

U.S. Jobless Claims Rise to 1.1 Million in Latest Week (WSJ) Published on: August 20, 2020 | Category: Economic Impact

New applications for unemployment benefits rose last week after a series of declines, showing that the labor market’s recovery from the effects of the pandemic remains uneven.
“The labor market isn’t bouncing back—it’s clawing back in fits and starts,” said Michelle Holder, a labor economist at John Jay College in New York.
The number of new claims rising last week shows that fresh layoffs are occurring even as the economy broadly is showing signs of recovering from the deep economic downturn caused by the pandemic and the shutdowns aimed at curbing it.

COVID-19 Helps Alibaba Beat Q1 Expectations (Jing Daily) Published on: August 20, 2020 | Category: Economic Impact

Like its competitors, the group’s e-commerce business expanded due to consumers’ growing reliance on online shopping and China’s early post-COVID-19 economic recovery.
Both of them can thank the mid-year shopping bonanza, 618, which saw platforms and brands offer consumer coupons and subsidies to help lure consumers into revenge spending.
As KOLs and merchants continued to connect with consumers through livestreaming in Q1, Taobao Live (Taobao’s livestreaming channel) saw its GMV grow by over 100 percent year-on-year, according to a company report that didn’t disclose conversion or sales numbers.

6 Ways a Crisis Can Help You Cultivate a Growth Mindset (HBR) Published on: August 20, 2020 | Category: Leadership

Research has shown that crises can help lift the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” mantra that pervades many organizations, creating new opportunities for people to voice their ideas on how to do things better.
Similarly, basketball and hockey teams often show improved performance after losing teammates to injury, because the remaining teammates are able to discover new ways of working together.
This growth mindset can serve us — and our teams — well during this crisis. We offer six suggestions for managers looking to leverage the transition to remote work to nurture a growth mindset in themselves and their teams.

How has the pandemic changed working lives? (The Economist) Published on: August 20, 2020 | Category: Global Response

A study concludes: more meetings, more emails, longer hours.
As millions of employees have relocated to living rooms and kitchen tables, pundits are already touting the death of the office, a new era of flexible timetables and mass exoduses from cities.
According to a recent study by researchers at Harvard Business School, employees have been attending more meetings—by video conference, rather than in person—sending more emails and putting in more hours since the widespread shift to home-working in March.

Reinvigorating growth in the consumer-goods industry (McKinsey) Published on: August 20, 2020 | Category: Economic Impact, Global Response

These companies also really thrived in developing markets by building brands and distribution as consumers became more able to pay for consumer goods.
But maybe most importantly for this context, they are four times more likely than older consumers to say that they resist buying mass brands.
Millennials are four times more likely than older consumers to say that they resist buying mass brands.

Target’s breakout quarter underscores big-box retailers’ growing footprint (Washington Post) Published on: August 19, 2020 | Category: Economic Impact

The pandemic has reshaped consumer habits and priorities, leading to skyrocketing fortunes for a handful of retailers and creating a growing divide between big-box stores such as Target, Walmart and Home Depot and the rest of the industry.
Profits soared by about 80 percent at both Walmart and Target during the second quarter, driven by a surge in online orders. Home sales are up, too, giving a boost to Lowe’s and Home Depot, where profits rose by 74 percent and 25 percent, respectively.
Lowe’s led the way with a 30 percent increase in revenue, followed by Target (where sales grew 25 percent), Home Depot (23 percent) and Walmart (6 percent).

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