Ever since the Coronavirus pandemic took hold of the world, the way we work has changed completely, and some of these changes may have actually been for the better and could potentially be implemented long term. However, some of the changes caused negative effects on employment rates and the jobs market, and some of these effects haven’t even taken place yet.
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The Job Market And Employment Rates
The job market is the group of people who are pursuing employment within the same economy. The pandemic had a particularly big impact on younger people in the UK. Since the pandemic began, employment rates for 16-24 year olds have dropped by 7%. Whilst there were 1.37 million people who were unemployed in January – March 2020, there are 1.60 million people who are unemployed as of june 2021.
Unemployment rates are also due to rise when the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme ends. There are similar problems across the globe , which Russell Haworth wrote about in an excellent blog which you can read here.
What Is The Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme?
Due to the pandemic and multiple lockdowns that we’ve been through, many businesses had to close their doors for what often turned out to be large periods of time. To ensure that businesses could survive these periods, the government introduced the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, which also became known as the Furlough Scheme.
This meant that the government was paying 80% of wages, up to £2,500 for the people on furlough, this helped over 11.6 million people in the UK. However, this scheme is due to end on the 3oth September, which means that we could see an increase in unemployment rates, as some businesses may not be able to keep on all of their staff without help from the government.
Introducing Hybrid Working
One of the ways that some businesses combat the closing of workplaces is introducing working from home, or remote working. This meant that they were able to continue providing their services to their customers whilst working safely and complying with covid guidelines. One of the benefits of working from home is that it gives you a better work life balance.
This is due to the fact that it offers more opportunities for flexible hours. This can be extremely beneficial when helping you fit your work around other life commitments such as taking your children to school. Working from home also reduces the amount of commuting that needs to be done. This helps to reduce costs for employees and has also been proven to reduce stress and depression.
Introducing hybrid working, a combination of working from home one or two days a week and working in the workplace the remainder of the days will help to boost morale, improve mental health and increase productivity. Hybrid working is something that was very rarely done pre-pandemic but it is something that many businesses now offer their employees, post pandemic.