What's the Employment Outlook?

Around a month, we were all shocked at the Qantas, Jetstar and Virgin layoffs and, more recently, by Virgin's administration. Which so many redundancies, it seemed as though the world had turned on its head. However, the travel and tourism industries were always going to suffer in such times, as holidays are cancelled and the government strongly suggests to keep travel to a minimum. Other industries have also taken hits, from retail clothing, to personal services, to real estate. The relaxing of some social distancing measures this Friday will see some change, but it will take time for companies and industries to get back to the way things were. 

Not all workforces are downsizing, however. As you may have seen in the news, Woolworths is offering to redeploy around 20,000 Qantas and Jetstar employees to address the panicked buying across Australia. Amazon, internationally, is reported to be recruiting for 100,000 extra employees to address the sudden increase in online shopping. IT companies across Australia, and indeed the world, have suddenly seen a sharp spike in their workloads, as thousands of companies begin to implement WFH (work from home) practices. Agriculture is also said to be doing quite well, as supermarkets buy produce hand-over-fist.

Things are changing, but the change goes both ways. This COVID-19 situation will see some long-term changes in the way that work works, but not all of these changes will be negative.