Coming out of Lockdown
Back in mid March I think that many of us thought that we would be working at home for a few weeks, then life would pretty much return to normal by the summer, with a few reminders of the restrictions. Clearly this isn’t going to be the case, and it is probably going to be more difficult and challenging than the medical aspects of fighting the virus.
Here are five areas that I think are interesting.
Work. People need to work to earn incomes, and the economy needs work to be done. However I think that the world of work is going to change. Those of us who can work remotely are getting used to it; and some (but not all) prefer it, because it means more time with family, and less time on painful commutes.
There will be fewer jobs. Even with job saving schemes like furloughs many will lose their jobs as the economy is taking a huge hit. Businesses have closed and those ex employees have less money to spend in the economy, buying things, going out to local events and so on.
There will be more gig work. When jobs start to come back, companies are far more likely to offer positions as freelance, short term, or zero hours. We will need to get used to gig work, and legislation needs to protect these workers with more rights and benefits.
There will be more remote work, including services being fulfilled in cheaper countries. I recently had a logo made for a personal project using a company based in Eastern Europe that I found on Fiverr. It cost just over £10, and it is perfectly sufficient for what I need.
People will be in the office less. It is very likely that companies will have to introduce rotas, so that people can socially distance. Expect to go ‘to work’ for maybe one of two days a week, and plan meetings, printing etc around that. The difficulties may not be the offices themselves, but transport to work, getting in lifts etc. I also think we’ll also see many more places being used as co-working spaces, particularly local bars and coffee shops, so you may not still be working at home, but somewhere with good facilities that you can walk to easily.
Housing & Transport. Remote work, and working closer to home means fewer people travelling (which means that governments will have to subsidise fares even more), but also less painful journeys.
It also means that there will be less of a premium put on living in major cities, because you pay huge amounts for very small spaces.
I have friends who live about 2 hours away from London, but are in jobs where they only need to visit the capital for meetings a couple of times a month, so can bear that cost (sometimes staying overnight) and live in a cheaper house with a big garden etc.
Foreign travel will also decline. I think that eventually tourism will recover (Ryanair for example is predicting that air travel will not return to pre-pandemic levels til 2021), but business travel may not. Most companies I know put travel bans on for several months a year, and people can now see how effectively people can work remotely.
A face to face meeting will almost always be more effective, but if it costs £5,000 more than an online one, people will be more likely to stay at home.
Shopping. Shopping breaks down into two categories — essentials and shopping as leisure. Shopping for essentials still goes on, but I think it is going to be hard to justify shopping as leisure until we have vaccines. You can argue that online shopping can do pretty much everything that physical shopping can do, but online shopping is generally more expensive and therefore more wasteful.
You can imagine department stores opening, but with only 50 shoppers per floor, however this completely changes the economics of retail. Maybe for very high end brands, and products like watches? With things like clothes shopping you won’t be able to try things on any more (returning products that you have worn to the shelves will be a no-no.)
I think it’s also likely that stores will introduce a booking system to replace or complement queuing, and similar to booking a delivery slot. You could book at 30 minute shopping slot at John Lewis on a Saturday morning, for example.
Hospitality. Again with hospitality it is going to break down to essentials vs leisure. We can still buy restaurant meals and drinks, but since they can be delivered to us (or collected), you can see an argument against allowing restaurants and bars to reopen. The whole point of these businesses is to encourage socialising, and this is what society is trying to avoid.
Restaurants that can work as takeaways, especially drive throughs, will be encouraged to open, others will be told to stay shut.
People talk about pub gardens etc, but having a pub with only 20–30 people (or groups 2 metres apart) completely changes the economics of the businesses, and so it’s hard to see how this would work. We’ve all been in quiet pubs, and they are great, but they are being subsidised by the busy times — Friday at 6pm etc — and aren’t viable in their own right. Add to this the hassle of having to clean much more thoroughly. Restaurants won’t leave menus on the tables, and things like bottles of ketchup will have to be cleaned between sittings.
There could again be exceptions at the high end — wine bars selling expensive drinks to small parties — but this is likely to be very divisive, and I’m sure governments would want to discourage it.
What I think is likely to happen though is that restaurants and bars will start to double as co-working spaces (see the point about work), and that some of us may become a member of our favorite local bar, to give guaranteed access at different times of the day, but also to help it stay in business.
Entertainment. The argument will be that you can be entertained remotely, via Netflix, TikTok etc, and that this is better for the time being than encouraging people to sit close to other people in a confined space for 2 hours. You could open cinemas and insist on 4 seats distance between people, but again this changes the whole economics of industry. Many of us have been in very quiet 11am showings, but these are only possible because other times are operating at full capacity.
Theatre is especially hard, because not only do you have the issue of the audience, the performers also need to be able to be comfortable when they perform, and not look out into an auditorium that is only 20% full. I can’t see theatres opening for a long time, sadly.
It’s going to be very hard. If you have a job that allows you to work remotely then feel very grateful, and do what you can to abide by the measures being brought in to relax the lockdown. If you value industries like hospitality and entertainment then please find ways to continue to spend money and support the institutions and people that you were supporting before.
