Labour Market Briefing - The impact of Covid-19 on the outlook for sectors of the economy

Reed in Partnership has analysed the employment outlook for key sectors of the economy, to support its efforts and those of its partners to help people find jobs during the current climate.

Our new report, The impact of Covid-19 on the outlook for sectors of the economy, shows the scale of the Covid-19 pandemic on all economic sectors in the short term as a result of the shut-down, with hospitality and other personal service sectors set to be the slowest to recover.

It illustrates this by coding sectors by colour using several employment indicators and finds that those mostly coded green are public services or other essential services, while hospitality, the arts and other services replying on personal contact are largely coded red. In between these extremes are sectors that were either less impacted by the pandemic (such as finance and information & communication) or those that were severely impacted but could potentially see a bounce back with Government support, such as construction.

It argues that a sector-focused approach and investment in transferable and digital skills will be needed to support lower-skilled jobseekers into jobs with a future. Moreover, employment support services will need to take a very active approach to supporting job creation and linking employers up with the many Government schemes available to help.

With such an uncertain outlook, Reed in Partnership is working to help people with the training and support they need, potentially to change sector if necessary. The challenge of changing sector or occupation should not be underestimated. Despite the lock-down period prompting people to consider changing occupation or sector, recent analysis from the Office for National Statistics found that the proportion of people switching occupations in the first half of 2020 was only very slightly up on the same period last year (6.1% compared to 5.7% in 2019).

You can read our full report below.

Download the full report →