Who is at risk?: work and automation in the time of COVID-19

Abstract

This report sets out to explore how [Coronavirus Disease 2019] COVID-19 might interact with technology and how this could fundamentally reshape the labour market. COVID-19 looks likely to create 'a tsunami of job losses'. There are also signs the pandemic could rapidly accelerate the pace of technological change. We set out a risk register that combines an analysis of the impacts of the pandemic on different sectors, with measures of automation risk and their growth or decline over the last decade. Our risk register does not aim to put a precise figure on the number of jobs that will be lost due to either robots or the pandemic. Rather, our aim is to help key decision makers – whether the Chancellor of the Exchequer or a careers advisor in an [further education] FE college – identify what jobs are vulnerable or resilient to these two different forces. And thus, what different types of policy support we need to make sure all workers gain or retain access to good work, during the pandemic and beyond.