POST EFFECTS OF COVID 19 ON WORKING CONDITIONS. Life Sciences Essay (Essay Sample)

POST EFFECTS OF COVID 19 ON WORKING CONDITIONS
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POST EFFECTS OF COVID 19 ON WORKING CONDITIONS
The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019, caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2. The outbreak was first identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. Respected international organisations agree that the current COVID-19 crisis will have a tremendous impact on society, both in the short and in the long term (ILO, 2020; Remuzzi and Remuzzi, 2020; WHO, 2020). In March and April of 2020, hospitals in several countries have been operating at their maximum capacity, and thousands of deaths have occurred. These countries have also gone into lockdown to varying degrees, which means that people have to live in social isolation from each other (Giupponi & Landais, 2020; Remuzzi and Remuzzi, 2020; WHO, 2020). Based on systems of ‘temporary unemployment’, employment contracts have been suspended in companies that are unable to comply with social distancing directives, or which have experienced an immediate fall in demand for their products and services (Giupponi & Landais, 2020; ILO, 2020). In the longer term, there is a fear that what began as a health crisis will develop into a deep economic crisis, with a decline in growth in the long term and increasing unemployment (Atkeson, 2020; Giupponi & Landais, 2020; ILO, 2020; McKibbin & Fernando, 2020).
However, the quantitative predictions about the long-term, global impact of the COVID-
19 crisis on the economy and labour market in the OECD countries vary dramatically. This is not surprising. Since standard economic models are trained using data from ‘normal times’, making predictions concerning ‘abnormal times’ is challenging for economic research. Moreover, the extent to which the supply side of the labour market will react to this health shock is unclear, particularly whether employees will adjust their labour preferences and corresponding behaviors.
To the best of our knowledge, the present research is the first study in the world to investigate the expected impact of the COVID-19 crisis on career outcomes and career aspirations using standardised measurements. Specifically, a panel of 3,821 employees, representative by gender, age and education—two levels for each of these three characteristics—of the broader population of employees, was surveyed with regard to two research questions.
Research question 1 (RQ1): What do employees think the impact of the COVID-19 crisis will be on their careers?
Research question 2 (RQ2): What do employees think the impact of the COVID-19 crisis will be on the importance they attach to various job characteristics?