There have been casualties of war during the coronavirus, and we probably won’t know its full extent until months from now. But there also have been industries which benefited from it and they will come out of the crisis stronger than ever.
Although we are heading towards records in terms of unemployment in many countries, the statistics coming out of LinkedIn, a Microsoft division, shows that finance, technology and consumer goods are currently hiring. The number is also quite impressive as we are looking at tens of thousands of jobs inside these industries.
Even in countries where employment is still going down, like in the U.S., the UK, France and Italy, the rate at which it is losing jobs has decreased dramatically since each of these territories have reached the peak of the pandemic (for more specific news on France, here is a French financial magazine).
That said, in the U.S., the unemployment rate is expected to reach 16%, right after the American economy was finally able to go down to a 50-year low level of 3,5%, right before the pandemic hit the world. The International Labour Organisation also announced that they believe 1,6 billion workers could lose their job, which represents almost half the workforce around the world.
Across the world, from North America to Asia, health care is the sector which offers the most employment possibilities today. Not surprising since this war needs nurses and doctors to keep us alive, as we have already seen over 200,000 deaths caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. But this virus also changed our lives and its modifications were transferred into new needs.
The lockdown and its repercussions brought on a stronger demand for financial consultants, more factory employees, animators and game designers (for games and animated videos). It also created a temporary need that saw a growing number of delivery workers take the road, many of them, delivering food. This sector should retract as soon as the restaurants reopen and people can move around normally.
In China, the first country to move out of the lockdown, there are already signs of new jobs creation in various industry sectors. In the midst of the crisis, the hiring rate on LinkedIn was 50% below the same period last year. After easing the lockdown rules in China, it’s now only 3% below last year’s level.