Given that I am currently in a COVID-19, you cannot help but think that everyone's journey is different in a pandemic. One cross-section of society which I think are particularly impressive are the parents of young children who have intense businesses/jobs and are finding themselves homeschooling
Sure - the demographic which is most exposed by COVID-19 are the elderly. Sure - the industry which has been hurt the most is hospitality and travel. However, one unsung hero are the new parents who are working intense jobs & swatting away their toddlers attempt to hijack their Zoom call.
NordVPN Teams’s figures show that in January workers in the UK and US were typically logged on for 11 hours a day – up from nine hours in the UK and eight in the US before lockdowns began in March 2020.
In Australia, there is less data around hours worked around the increase in hours. Based on Australia Talks National Survey 2021 - before the pandemic, half of the respondents did absolutely no working from home: zero hours. Almost a third (31 per cent) did anywhere from an hour a day to eight hours or more.
Generally speaking local media has showcased that leading employers (big 4 banks, Atlassian etc) are championing the Work From Home environment. Nonetheless, the topic of the increased hours worked gets little air-time.
For example - anyone who works in finance or anything related to M&A would know this year has been busier than ever. According to Refinitiv - there was $174 billion worth of M&A deals announced in Australia in 2021 an all-time high and about six times the value in the same period last year. More interestingly - Australia had the biggest share of Asia (excl. Japan) deal flow in over a decade!
In other sectors - eCommerce firms have never worked harder than ever. Back in Mar'21, Australia Post’s eCommerce Industry Report 2021 showed a 9 million households shopped online in 2021(+57% more than than the previous year).
Private construction - which has certainly cooled since then - the Australian Bureau of Statistics figures for April show approvals for detached houses surged to a record 140,222 over the 12 months to April, +34% from the year before.
So the financial stress of the industries eviscerated by COVID-19 is worse - there are pockets of the country which are busier than ever. Importantly, it would be great if we recognised the new parents who are battling with home schooling and a crazy workload at the same time!
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