World After Pandemic: Society and Economy (Interview Kanal 77)

In the aftermath of every major pandemic in history – the Black Death and Spanish flu included – the world had experienced a long period of unprecedented prosperity and irrational exuberance as efforts to rebuild coincided with a redistribution of wealth. In some cases, income inequality decreased (14th and 15th centuries) – in others, it skyrocketed dramatically (1920s).

COVID-19 is bound to segue into the same magnitude of economic rebound, but it is also likely to induce structural changes. Remote work will overtake work in physical locations, for example. Many tech giants have announced plans to dispense of most of their office space. This will have a huge destabilizing impact on construction and on commercial real estate. Automation and globalization - trends that commenced long before COVID-19 - will be catalyzed by it.

Family formation will languish further as both life expectancy and earning drop off a cliff. Entire industries, originally created to cater to the outsourced needs of families – first and foremost, education - will go into terminal inexorable decline. The only exceptions will be healthcare and the beauty industries.

The pandemic also exposed the stark divide between the dwindling and impoverished, hollowed out middle and working classes and the elite, centred around finance, technology, and retail. The record-breaking ascendance of the stock exchanges reflects this schism between main street and wall street.

The workforce of the future will be comprised of low-income, unskilled, dead end jobs on the one hand and well paying positions that require higher education and continued re-skilling throughout the lifespan.