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When the pandemic first hit Oregon last year, economists watched it like scientists observing an asteroid hurtling toward Earth—a once-in-a-lifetime disaster they couldn't help but study with fascination.
A year later, it's time to assess the damage. Was this an event that has forever changed the economy, or merely an extended interruption?
WW asked two of the state's top economists, Tim Duy and Josh Lehner, about what the job market looks like going forward. Somewhat surprisingly, both are fairly optimistic about what happens next.
WW: What industries are coming out ahead post-pandemic?
Josh Lehner: We are still in the stage where the pain we were seeing a year ago, or certainly 10 months ago, in the sector impact is really the same as what we're seeing today. Some of those bars and restaurants have reopened a little bit, so their employment's up. But there's still a big hole. In that big picture, the sectors that are doing better is really anything that doesn't require a lot of in-person service. If you want to talk about e-commerce-related stuff, like couriers and messengers, stuff like that is through the roof.
Tim Duy: I'm trying to think of other sectors in the economy that will be persistently changed, and I'm actually drawing a blank because many of the jobs that were lost were [because of] the supply-side issue—basically, they weren't able to be made safe during the pandemic, and then as soon as we can get rid of the pandemic, they should be safe again, and we should see large shifts back into the kinds of jobs that were disproportionately negatively affected. The end results are probably going to be more marginal as far as whether the economy looks similar to what it did prior to the pandemic or after it.
What jobs aren't coming back post-pandemic?
Duy: I guess I'm kind of an optimist, because I'm not sure what behavior changes. There might be less small retail. Some of that, [because of] online shopping, I don't think it's going to shift back, so those kinds of jobs could be switched out for the warehouse-slash-delivery-type jobs. No in-person dining could get swapped out for more takeout dining. Those are the kinds of transitions that I would be looking for.
Lehner: We have a return to full health and the economy in about two years. It could be faster than that. We've seen less economic scarring or permanent damage than we first thought might happen in terms of business closures. They're severe, but they're less severe than we thought.
Are we going to be working from home permanently, and what are the implications?
Duy: I don't think that we'll all go back to 100% work from home or 100% work in the office. The future of work is going to be a more flexible business model. What this will reveal is that there's more room for that flexibility than we thought before. I have had in the back of my mind that the next business consulting opportunity is integrating new work-from-home employees into your work culture.
Lehner: I heard somebody make the analogy that if remote work is going to be this really big societal change, they likened it to the internet. We're 1997 today—we don't know what the next 10 years is going to look like because it's so new. But it could have profound impacts if we really do see people spread out more across the country, or even around the state, and not as clustered in the larger cities. Humankind is more and more clustered. Over our existence, the benefits of cities have been really profound in shaping society and the economy. If we start to undo that a little bit from a physical space perspective, it can have profound impacts.
What we'll see immediately—and whether it goes beyond this, I don't know—is people will continue to work from home a day or two or maybe three a week. They won't commute into the office every single day like they did before. And what does that mean? Well, I think one thing that means is we're going to see less foot traffic in our downtowns. And if you don't have that commuter base coming in every day, or only 80% of them are coming in every day, that reduces the lunch crowd, that reduces the window shopping. That will hurt the cluster that's built up in our downtown cores around the country.
If you had kids just entering the job market, where would you steer them?
Duy: We're going to have a shortage of trade workers. If you're a plumber or electrician, all of those jobs seem likely to really bloom here in the coming years. I'd probably point to an industry that's likely to be in demand and also had an aging workforce.
Lehner: Frankly, it depends upon your skill set and your educational attainment. If you're a fresh college graduate, there's probably nearly just as many job opportunities today as there was a year or two ago. Those office-based, white-collar professional type jobs, I'm not sure those are going away tomorrow. And so to be close to the job, and going into the office when it's safe to do so, there's still going to be some benefits associated with that, particularly for young people starting their career.
