No. 1: Pandemic alters employment scene

The nature of work changed in 2021, a year many thought of as post-pandemic, though COVID-19 raged on. While many businesses shuttered temporarily – and some permanently – as a precaution against the coronavirus in 2020, this year saw most businesses attempt a return to normalcy.

But the “new normal” of 2021 found many workers feeling comfortable working from home – too comfortable, perhaps, for work life to remain the same. The 2021 Future of Work Study by Accenture found 83% of workers prefer a hybrid work model, and 63% of high-growth companies had already adopted a “productivity anywhere” workforce model.

Some workplaces experienced a cultural drawback as a result of the work-from-home movement. Gallup’s 2021 State of the Global Workplace report found employee engagement, already low at 22%, decreased 2 more percentage points from 2019 to 2020, and workers’ daily stress levels rose to 43% from 38%.

In early December 2021, the Indeed online job search website listed some 11,500 openings in Greene County. Unemployment was at a near-historic low of 2.4% in the Springfield metropolitan statistical area, with an estimated 4,000-person net reduction in the local workforce just six months earlier.

Nationally, economists were starting to talk about the “Great Resignation” – a movement of employees from the conventional workforce for various reasons. This year, labor research company Emsi coined the term “sansdemic” to refer to a workforce with too few participants.

Some exited the workforce because they were drawn to home and family during the pandemic. Some opted for early retirement. About 800,000 people died nationwide, many of them working age, and some experienced lingering effects of COVID-19 that pushed them from the workforce.

Still others – women chief among them – started thinking about work differently. When school started in 2020, 1.1 million people had left the workforce, and 80% of them were women, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. By December of 2020, leading into 2021, women had accounted for all of the nation’s net job losses, while men actually experienced some gains. While some speculated the reopening of schools would bring women back to work, workforce shortages in the child care field mean the caregiver role continues for many of these parents, and for now, the so-called “she-cession” continues.

It wasn’t necessary to be an economist to note the worker shortage, locally or nationally, as many fast-food restaurants still have closed dining rooms or shortened hours, and visits to food and retail establishments entail long waits. “Help wanted” signs and offers of sign-on bonuses can be seen outside of businesses ranging from coffee shops to factories as the year draws to a close.