Since my last blog post, the
construction dust of the Great Reset has started to settle. We did not ask for this Brave New World of
lockdowns and social restrictions, but we grown-ups have gamely attempted to
adjust to it.
It is not easy to be so
greatly jarred out of our comfort zone.
Should we expect things to go back to normal soon? In a few years? During our lifetimes?
Over the past few months, I
have noticed a bellwether change. Money
and status -- elements of modern life that used to be of paramount importance --
have lost their luster. If you are not
driving a quarter-million-dollar sports car by the time you turn thirty, maybe it
is because that goal has become meaningless.
New priorities are
emerging. People are assessing who they
are, what they have, and where they want to be right now. The five-year
plan, once the hallmark of a business professional, is rarely brought up in an
interview anymore. How could applicants
possibly know what they will be doing, let alone what the world will look like,
a few years from now?
Social
isolation has wreaked havoc with colleges and careers.
Let’s look at the pandemic’s
impact on higher education. With many
universities closed, classes have moved online.
This is not the way that most students envisioned pursuing their
academic dreams. When the dorms closed,
the social atmosphere evaporated. Where
is the sense of camaraderie created by embarking on this big adventure with
one’s classmates? How will students
build the priceless lifelong friendships that college inspires?
Another joy of higher
education is taking classes taught by that
guy – the professor everyone loves, who cracks jokes while he compacts the rise
and fall of the Roman Empire into ninety
minutes. Devoid of a lively on-campus environment,
education breaks down into cold, mechanical steps: read the chapters, write the
paper, take the test. The computer
screen is both a window and a barrier.
We can see and hear the teacher, but interaction is strained.
Online classes, therefore,
demand a higher level of self-motivation.
If attending college is far more about earning a piece of paper than
enjoying the journey, students will have to decide if that goal is worth both
the cost and the effort. Before the
pandemic, nearly half of college students dropped out before the end of their
freshman year. Will we see that
statistic climb in 2020?
Let’s suppose that students
– especially those who are close to graduation – chug through their remaining
classes and earn their degrees. Now they
are applying for jobs…side by side with over thirty million people who lost
their steady paychecks during the pandemic.
The
competition for good jobs is fiercer now than during the Great Recession.
And that economic downturn was no cakewalk, as anyone who survived it can tell
you.
About ten years ago, an
interesting phenomenon emerged: after many jobs were eliminated and
unemployment benefits ran out, millions of people disappeared. Poof.
Gone. No, not raptured to a
better place. They were still here in
the Earthly realm. But they stepped
outside of The System.
During the Great Recession,
the government expected laid off workers to either find another job or go back
to school and train for a new career. But
when millions of former employees fell off the radar, data analysts coined the phrase,
“discouraged workers” to explain their absence from labor reports.
Discouraged
was an inaccurate label. The truth is
that these former employees reinvented themselves. They discovered new ways to earn money. They created small businesses. They raised alpacas and created artisan
goods. They built tiny houses from
reclaimed materials. They started blogs
and vlogs. They sold their furniture,
bought sailboats, and traveled the world.
They had adventures.
Some eventually returned to
the nine-to-five world, with the confident and fearless expectation of one day
again setting out into the unknown.
Bloggers are armchair
sociologists; we analyze trends and guestimate what will happen next, tasks
infinitely more challenging in 2020 than ever before. Once the economy
improves, I predict that we will see a greater variety of jobs return (albeit with online
interviewing, social distancing, and other modifications). This will improve the odds for job seekers to
find a position related to their education and work experience.
As the lockdowns and social
restrictions continue, however, not only is society reinventing itself, but
also many employees are examining their job duties, their working conditions,
and their career goals. Just as in the
Great Recession, it is likely that we will continue to see working-age adults
pursue options – temporarily or permanently -- outside of the traditional job
market.
