“It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future” – Yogi Berra
Last week I looked at some of the many 2021 jobs-and-economy
forecasts and semi-forecasts. Now it is
time for my views.
There are four general patterns of change and
non-change. The first could be called
“pent-up demand,” either what happened after World War II with housing and
previously unavailable consumer goods, which created tens of millions of
civilian jobs, or simple resumption. The
second is “acquiescence,” or situations where people decide they preferred what
they had to do during the pandemic, including innovations and efficiencies
discovered, tested, and at least partially debugged over the past year. Third is “as expected,” in which trends,
whether interrupted or not, go back to either where they were or where they
were headed before Covid-19. Fourth is “new
perspective,” when, on the edge of resuming an activity after a break, people
decide they do not want to do it in the same way they did before, do not want
to do it at all, or wish to start something new.
To project how something will be different is to determine which
pattern will apply. Sometimes that seems
easy, and otherwise we have to look at the strength of the factors involved –
how much incentive people have to follow certain methods. There will always be a great deal unknown, as
anyone associated with commercial success of any kind of art can relate. Yet we can still do better than chance. Accordingly, I extend the following.
On working at home, the second and third patterns will
operate. Before March, there was a
movement by large organizations to bring employees back into the office, with
amenities designed to encourage longer hours there, but many workers discovered
how much they liked not needing to commute.
(The nasty things, such as slanted toilets and self-serving messages on
water-cooler cucumbers, though, will be nipped in the bud – a perfect
application of the fourth pattern.) Outcomes
here will vary greatly by company, and after a year or two will resume being in
effect an employee benefit. Zoom calls,
though, which nobody seems to like, will go away, replaced again by conference
calls or in-person gatherings.
One thing teachers and school administrators have discovered
is that remote learning for students below high school, to which the first
pattern applies, does not work. Its
disadvantages, from students losing snow days to uncorrectable income and home-setting
differences, have become known, with little on the other side. Expect distance classes to end for junior
high and below as soon as pandemic infection levels drop substantially,
probably with the 2021-22 school year. The
same will pertain to wearing masks and practicing social distancing, for the
same reasons.
As for permanent changes to restaurants, we don’t see any,
except for thinning of their numbers caused by many forced out of business. The fourth pattern, in which many people
notice how much less money they have spent on eating out, will apply, and
demand, not helped by insufficiently worthwhile high-end takeout meals, will
drop. There will be new places, but
fewer prospective entrepreneurs than before will feel motivated to start such
ventures. Other storefront businesses
will do better, but indefinitely lower demand for space in the likes of New York
City will force rents down.
Per the third pattern, I do not predict significant changes
to labor laws. What looked like a push
to raise wages and provide benefits such as paid sick days to low-level
customer-facing workers, such as grocery clerks and cashiers, seems to have
petered out, with some seeing the stimulus payments and possible preferential
vaccine treatment as close enough to fair compensation. The cases against mandating broad-based pay
increases are as strong as ever, and with a moderate president will continue to
stop the passing of laws requiring the likes of $15 per hour for everyone. The struggles between Uber, Lyft, Airbnb, and
their resource providers will continue, with the companies getting the worst of
them most of the time.
Will proof of vaccination become a credential needed for many
2021 activities? Yes – and it will
indicate a two-class society, not by race or income but by the choice of
whether to get injected. It will
probably be required for travel to certain states and countries without
quarantining, for entry to some restaurants, bars, or social clubs, and elsewhere. I don’t know about large spectator events, as
such numbers make fraudulent credentials hard to stop, and all it would take
would be one case of some such liar superspreading the virus to make us all
realize that, once again, a few people can ruin things for the rest of us. By mid-2022, with these advantages and the taming
of Trumpism, about 95% of Americans will have had one of many vaccines long
since readily available.
Happy new year. I
hope 2021 is as good to all of us as I believe it will be.
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