The Pandemic Has Gutted Low-Income jobs. Automation is speeding up. How Do We Move Forward? - Issue #3

May 03, 2021

Frontline workers, now considered essential workers, have kept our economy afloat through the pandemic. Essential workers, often Black, Latino and women of color, have served all Americans while, literally, putting themselves and their families at risk of catching Covid-19. Molly Bashay has continually tracked the pandemic's impact on labor and automation.

"August 2020, the national unemployment rate was 8.4 percent but for workers of color and young people the rate was far higher," Bashay explained. "For Asian American workers it was 10.5 percent and it was 10.7 and 13.7 percent for Latinx and Black workers respectively. Between January and May 2020 the unemployment rate for workers aged 20-24 leapt from 7.6 to 23.2 percent. Despite making up 49 percent of the labor force, women experienced 55 percent of job losses in April 2020, driving the female unemployment rate to double digits for the first time since the Department of Labor began collecting the data more than 70 years ago. Women of color have faced even grimmer job losses than women overall."

Here is more of our interview below.

Context Newsletter: How has the pandemic affected the labor market, in general, and how has it specifically affected low-income workers (essential workers), who are mostly Black and Latino?

Molly Bashay: The COVID-19 pandemic and economic crisis devastated the health and economic well-being of millions of families with low incomes. Workers of color, immigrants, young people, women, workers in jobs paying low wages, and frontline workers are among the hardest hit by these crises. Worse still, significant job losses and reductions in income have deepened racial inequities and exacerbated poverty and economic hardship for millions. Prior to the pandemic, women and people of color dominated low-paying jobs, characterized by lack of health benefits and paid leave and often unpredictable and unstable work schedules. As many as four in ten workers are underemployed, meaning they work part-time [hours], but would prefer to work more [full-time] hours. However, they're unable to do so. Close to 25 percent of the pre-pandemic low-wage workforce was made up of workers under the age of 25. Women, Black, and Latinx workers were overrepresented in the low-wage workforce and 40 percent of this workforce was raising children. Good jobs require sustainable, living wages; paid leave benefits; and fair and predictable schedules—all of which rarely exist in the low-wage sector.

CN: How has policy created inequities when it comes to labor and education?

MB: Today’s recession, like the Great Recession, and so many crises before it, makes clear the consequences of neglect and underinvestment. Continuing to overlook and under-prioritize people of color, young people, women, and communities with low incomes will only ensure that they continue to suffer disproportionately. As we work to rebuild we must not remake the same inequitable cracks in our national foundation. Workers of color, women, and young workers continue to experience some of the pandemic’s most acute effects - harms that are largely due to systemic barriers. The inadequate policy has kept prosperity out of their reach while denying them a comprehensive safety net to protect them in an economic downturn.

CN: Do you believe that the advancement of technology has affected the way people work? If so, to what degree (some people have said that it will happen but not that bad while others have said it is worse than we think).

MB: The effects of technological advancement and automation are not equal across all sectors and industries, or even across job types and functions. One thing nearly all workers - businesses, and training providers - are increasingly grappling with is the shift to digitalized work and work functions as well as a shift to online and remote work. This shift is difficult for many to adapt to, but increasingly difficult for workers who were laid off during the early days of the pandemic or forced out of work due to caregiving responsibilities following facilities closures. For many of those workers, reengaging with a labor market that increasingly relies on digital skills is a serious challenge. Moreover, the traditional model of “going back to school” to adapt to economic shifts, as we saw in the Great Recession, is complicated by, again, the shift to online-only learning.

CN: How does the development of automation affect labor, among middle-skilled jobs as well as low-wage jobs?

MB: It’s important to note that this shift isn’t only affecting office workers or “white-collar workers.” Every industry and nearly every job requires digital skills of some kind, and every industry reports some disconnect between the level of digital fluency necessary to accomplish daily tasks and the digital fluency of their workforce. Quote-unquote “middle-skill industries” and sectors that don’t require formal training or certifications both experience this barrier. Trades like construction and manufacturing have some of the highest percentages of workers with little or no digital fluency. However, little and no digital fluency is also common among retail workers though the industry has massively digitalized, most visibly at point-of-sale systems via online ordering, delivery, and pick-up apps and logistics, which require a whole host of new competencies from the retail workforce to operate.

CN: How do you think apprenticeships can help with the problems that automation causes in the labor market?

MB: Registered apprenticeship is one of the nation’s most successful federally-authorized workforce development programs and is key to revitalizing our nation’s infrastructure. Registered apprenticeships ensure high-quality employment outcomes for participants through guided pathways, robust work/life supports, on-the-job training, and mentorship. Meanwhile, high-quality pre-apprenticeships help bridge the gap, ensuring equity in access and participation, especially for people of color, women, and young people who have been historically precluded from accessing apprenticeships. The Biden-Harris administration called on - the American Jobs Plan - congress to invest a combined $48 billion in American workforce development infrastructure and worker protection. This includes registered apprenticeships and pre-apprenticeships, creating one to two million new registered apprenticeships slots, and [possibly] strengthening the pipeline for more women and people of color to access these opportunities through successful pre-apprenticeship programs such as the Women in Apprenticeships. This [could] ensure these underserved groups have greater access to new infrastructure jobs. These investments include the creation of career pathway programs in middle and high schools, prioritizing increased access to computer science, high-quality career and technical programs that connect underrepresented students to STEM. The President’s plan also will support community college partnerships that build capacity to deliver job training programs based on in-demand skills.