Post-covid economics: The great resignation, remote work, & musical chairs

[Sheilbh]

One other aspect of post-covid economics is going to be at schools - there is data in England that absence rates at secondary schools is now running at an average of about 15% (up from 5% pre-pandemic). About half of the difference can, apparently, be explained by covid (positive tests, self-isolating etc). But it seems that since lockdowns there is now a chunk of kids that are perpetually absent from school which I think is a problem (and I wouldn't be surprised if those absences reinforce existing inequalities).

I'm not sure if this has been observed anywhere else in the world. But it feels like part of post-covid economics is going to be a huge amount of spending and work to try and make sure this generation of kids don't permanently lose out - I think a lot about that Dutch study in the summer of 2020 that showed how wildly differently home schooling was working for families with money and families without.

[Josquius]

I've heard from teachers that there are a significant chunk of kids who have had a bit of an awakening since lock down. For the worse.
Previously arse holes but ones who trudged along broadly following the rules they're now in open revolt just doing what they want, walking out of the class on a whim or hanging around outside the school when they should have a class.
It really seems to have massively boosted fatalistic views of many.

[viper37]

Will the major cities with top salaries see a stuttering and potential reversal in what they pay?
Will salaries have to do more to equalise nationally- to an extent even globally?
Will Google's lead be the one to follow with companies paying according to your address (cue: an upsurge in people buying Geneva post boxes)?
Is this a sledge hammer to the head of already struggling city centres, massively disrupting their attempts to transition away from shopping?- or will it prove a lifeline to smaller town centres allowing them to lead the way in doing this?

Will covid see a black death level of economic reshaping? Or will everything be swiftly rolled back to how it was before?

So many questions, so many thoughts to be had.

I don't think Google is the first to do that since the beginning of the pandemic.

I see it as an indirect way to get people into the office.  Companies are left with huge, empty pieces of real estate. They can't reallt shrink their office size, big tech companies like Google or Microsoft have campus-sized offices.  Even if they can reduce the space they use, it wouldn't be practical for another company to rent a building right next to Google.

As an aside, it's also the same age-old process of delocalization, as you said, if an engineer in India can do the work for less, why pay more?

However, I think that for some jobs, remote work has its limits.  I don't see a return to pre-pandemic levels, but I imagine a more hybrid work, with people can afford it work 2-3 days per week in the city and the rest from their cottage/countryside house.  Assuming they have decent connections*

Salary wise, it will be tricky to maintain a sizable pool of talents and keep cutting wages.  Eventually, some other competitors are going to raise their wages, independant of employee's locations to attract talent.  I see this as a temporary move, just because they can.



*Small anecdote: Canada's biggest telecom company is Bell Canada Enterprises (BCE).  BCE's Ceo has a cottage in a remote area of the province.  After he moved there, that part of the area, far away from city centers, was wired with fiber optics and got all the latest services offered by the company

[Jacob]

We started going back 3 days a week now. A colleague suspects, and I agree, that we'll be working in the office all 5 days next year. I'm starting to look for full time WFH jobs because I hate the commute.

Yeah, why put up with it if you have options?

[viper37]

We started going back 3 days a week now. A colleague suspects, and I agree, that we'll be working in the office all 5 days next year. I'm starting to look for full time WFH jobs because I hate the commute.

Yeah, why put up with it if you have options?

Strangely enough, some people, even on the not very social scale, tend to favour working  outside the home.

[Sheilbh]

We started going back 3 days a week now. A colleague suspects, and I agree, that we'll be working in the office all 5 days next year. I'm starting to look for full time WFH jobs because I hate the commute.

Yeah, why put up with it if you have options?

Yeah - I know of some people who've turned down jobs because they didn't have enough WFH arrangements.

[Jacob]

Strangely enough, some people, even on the not very social scale, tend to favour working  outside the home.

Yes, but in this specific case it's clear that HisMajestyBOB does not. What some other people may or may not favour doesn't really matter to whether he is going to put up with being forced into the office when he'd rather not.

[Threviel]

I prefer to separate work life and home life. During the pandemic i sat in my garage and now I've removed all the office stuff from there.

The 1.5 h commute a day is not very fun though, and I'm looking into setting up some kind of permanent office at home.

[Josquius]

I prefer to separate work life and home life. During the pandemic i sat in my garage and now I've removed all the office stuff from there.

The 1.5 h commute a day is not very fun though, and I'm looking into setting up some kind of permanent office at home.

Same. The trouble is its hard to justify having an office and a man cave in our small house. Two sets of monitors et al. Thus my office is the place where all my hobbies are... If I ever get around to doing them.
It's not ideal.

[Syt]

Well, British papers seem to have opinions on the matter.

[Tamas]

  you can tell some people are REALLY worried about their commercial properties portfolio

[Sheilbh]

Well, British papers seem to have opinions on the matter.

I mean this is unarguable - the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary were working from their holidays and I think that did have an impact

This is one of those things where there's a massive age divide and basically people who are working age and have actually experienced WFH don't mind  - people who are retired and nevere did it, do:


Of course the truth is that private businesses are doing what's best for them. Obviously govenment does have a say over the civil service (and Oliver Dowden complained that people needed to "get off their Pelotons" and back to work; worth nothing that the head civil servant in his department had done a tech conference where she spoke about how great WFH was and that if she had any spare minute during the day it allowed her to hop on her Peloton ) - but the issue there is I think civil servants have been run ragged while WFH. There may be occasions when they can't - I imagine during a crisis they'd need to come in (as would ministers) - but, ultimately, the civil service is less well-paid than equivalent private sector jobs. Part of the appeal is you're doing interesting important work, but another big part is that the benefits and work environment are really good. If they start slipping behind on that then there's really not much reason to go into the civil service apart from the interest/service angle.

Edit: Having said that I think it's striking that young people just starting out are far less concerned about the government telling workers to get back into the office which may reflect what we've discussed before about juniors feeling they're not getting the benefits of working both practically in learning on the job, informal conversations etc - but also more broadly social events with the rest of their cohort/other juniors in different businesses etc.

I'm a bit agnostic on WFH - but I'm not really sure it's any of government's business what private employers are doing.

[Iormlund]

I prefer to separate work life and home life. During the pandemic i sat in my garage and now I've removed all the office stuff from there.

The 1.5 h commute a day is not very fun though, and I'm looking into setting up some kind of permanent office at home.

Similar experience here. I only worked from home for a couple weeks during lockdown last year. It was pretty unenjoyable.
My flat was tiny and had no dedicated space. Also, most of my age cohort have small kids now, so work has a significant social impact on my life. Without that I would need some alternative (co-working space).

My main problem with going to the office is the going part as well. Before the pandemic hit I bought a place that cuts my daily commute to half an hour (and is by the main ring motorway in case the plant closes/I get laid off).


One of my friends has been WFH from the start and loves it, though. He's a project manager, so he doesn't really need to be at the factory at all. Despite that his boss has been badgering him for over a year to come back. Usually he's the odd one out, connecting via Teams to local meetings (unless I'm involved, since I do the same from my office).

[Grey Fox]

Because I have so much equipment, I couldn't use my dedicated office for my work space so I had to create a newdedicated one from what was once my home gym. While I do miss the home gym, it probably save my mental health to not play where I work.

Now the original office is my GF workplace too.

[HisMajestyBOB]

We started going back 3 days a week now. A colleague suspects, and I agree, that we'll be working in the office all 5 days next year. I'm starting to look for full time WFH jobs because I hate the commute.

Yeah, why put up with it if you have options?

Strangely enough, some people, even on the not very social scale, tend to favour working  outside the home.

Yes, but in this specific case it's clear that HisMajestyBOB does not. What some other people may or may not favour doesn't really matter to whether he is going to put up with being forced into the office when he'd rather not.

Yeah, I don't mind WFH so much. It's a 1 hour commute one-way, longer if I have to take the bus from my house. Working in the office also makes it difficult to drop off and pick up my son from preschool, which is something I really enjoy.

I find I don't mind the blurred boundaries between work and home life. Because of my job, I already check my email occasionally over the weekend and every once in a while put in evening or weekend hours. On the flip side, my job makes it easy for me to take a short break during the day at home to do laundry or other chores, or watch the kids play, as long as I get the work done and get my weekly hours in.

I have a small townhouse, so I can't have a separate home office. The basement is the combination storage / home office / back door / "man cave" with all my computer crap. So if I get sick of spending so much time down there, I'll go upstairs to read or use computer after work and after the kids are in bed.

As far as work relationships during WFH have a few good friends among my colleagues that I still communicate socially Now they're all in different cities so even when I go back to the office, they're remote. WFH has been harder on the junior staff and developing relationships with them, but there's also an increasing age gap between them and me, so I'm less and less of a equal coworker and more of a senior advisor.