As we emerge from an unprecedented environment caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, I’ve witnessed some interesting career trends. I’d like to share my take on mid- and post-pandemic trends. My perspective is based on working with hundreds of corporate professionals per year. I will then share employment forecast data that I found interesting from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Remote work is here to stay. While the world has been equipped for remote working for decades, it has not been utilized to the extent it could be prior to the pandemic. The pandemic forced everyone into remote working. Companies took the opportunity to perform productivity studies during this time and guess what? Those studies showed that productivity of remote workers increased. When you couple increased productivity with a reduction in real estate costs, the Return on Investment (ROI) is huge. Therefore, I believe remote and hybrid work arrangements are here to stay. This opens up opportunity for candidates that may have been geographically constrained in their career.
It’s currently a candidate’s job market. I’m hearing from many executives about a thirst for talent. Because of this, candidates are in a good position to negotiate attractive offers. This is further bolstering the remote/hybrid trend. While candidates want to work hard, make an impact, and get ahead, they just need some flexibility to manage their obligations. A hybrid work arrangement is ideal for many. Go ahead and ask for your ideal offer.
Career management is challenging in a remote or hybrid environment. This is the downside to this new trend. Since building and managing your “personal brand” is imperative to career success, a remote work environment is a disadvantage to most employees. In a remote world, one has to be much more proactive in building relationships and a reputation across an organization. This is especially difficult for introverts and those who believe that “the work speaks for itself.” One will need to be intentional and strategic in managing their personal brand when working remotely.
I found these trends interesting as predicted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (2021-2022):
Employment is projected to grow by 11.9 million jobs from 153.5 million to 165.4 million jobs from 2020 to 2030. Pandemic recovery and growth in healthcare-related occupations are expected to account for a large share of projected job growth.
Growth in % of workforce over 65 will grow by 3% over the next 10 years.
The AI revolution is not expected to result in dramatic job displacement, contrary to popular belief.
Five of the top ten growing occupations from 2020 to 2030 are in healthcare.
The pandemic has made IT workers even more important to the future economy and is projected to increase over the next decade.
While the personal care industry was hard hit by the pandemic, it’s projected to grow beyond the rebound due to increased demand and new product and services. In fact, it is expected to grow almost 5 times faster than the average for the total economy over the 2020–2030 period.
E-commerce changed consumer behavior and led to vast gains in industry productivity favoring fewer retail workers. As a result, retail trade is projected to contract by almost 600,000 jobs over the course of the 2020–2030 decade.
As the U.S. labor market continues to recover from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, one constant remains: Education boosts earnings and reduces unemployment. In 2021, Workers age 25 and over who attained less than a high school diploma had the lowest median weekly earnings and highest unemployment rate among those at all education levels. Workers with graduate degrees (master's, professional, and doctoral degrees) had the highest earnings and lowest unemployment rates.
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