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How We Define "Work" After 2020

With less than 90 days until our next Presidential election, who can predict what our workforce will look like and how work will be accomplished in 2021 and beyond? No one can! Why does it matter? Because we want our children and grandchildren to have the same or better work opportunities than we did.

Like many of you, I have children and grandchildren. My children have been able to retain income and thus far survived the health hazards of Covid19 and the severe job losses from various lockdown decisions from Governors in Georgia, California, and Florida. One granddaughter is studying computer animation at a private school in Florida. The other obtained her nursing certificate in Georgia and recently delivered a baby boy. My son lives in California. So far, so good!

You may have missed the story about a grandmother in Minneapolis who saw her grandson on television masked up and throwing bricks at retail store windows during the riots following George Floyd's death. After seeing her grandson was not peacefully protesting as she had thought, she drove to the protesters' location to find him. She found him, grabbed him, and dragged him to her car. A video caught her giving her grandson a verbal dress down. That would have been me had my children engaged in ANY less than peaceful protests. That's leadership as a parent. Then I thought, where are the parents and grandparents of so many of these misguided youth who should be responding to their children and grandchildren's warped thinking and destructive attitudes toward public and private property? Do they need jobs or are they just caught up in the activist moment and yet to mature? The imperative question might be, what happened with parenting in the last few decades? The answer to that question would help to answer the concerns we all have for job opportunities in 2021 and beyond.

Businesses that could accommodate working from home to survive the onslaught of Covid19 since March 2020, did so. In some instances, productivity has increased by working remotely connected by corporate servers to the Internet. Many of us who have worked remotely knew this workforce mix can improve productivity and work/life balance.

Many office building-based companies have now incorporated remote connectivity for workers as a permanent work option. This also opens more opportunities for freelance and gig workers in instances where work can be done remotely and integrating their skills into projects with full-time company workers--blending the workforce mix.

Technology advances have made this possible anywhere one can get connected to the Internet. Security issues still lag this expansion, but more resources are being allocated to both corporate and Internet access providers to improve remote connectivity and firewalls for privacy and security.

Travel, lodging, and retail have been devastated by the spread of Covid19 and the fear of exposure by regular consumers. However, when this pandemic passes or overreaction fears subside or a vaccine is available, the travel and entertainment industries will slowly return to normal. Retail consumers, however, have become more dependent on shopping online. In addition to reduced office space utilization, in-store retail shopping spaces will continue to be downsized or eliminated. Several large chains have already filed for bankruptcy and that trend will continue providing fewer net part-time and full-time retail jobs.

The development of driverless cars and trucks moves ahead full steam. Utilization of these for transportation is now a foregone conclusion. Within a decade or two, thousands of truck drivers, cab drivers, and Uber drivers will need to find a new profession or skill to sustain themselves.

The remaining business sectors are those more difficult to predict how their workforces will evolve. Testing one's crystal ball predictions or experienced guesses about the USA labor markets beyond the end of 2020 covers a mountain of intangible and tangible data. So why try to read the tea leaves? To get some semblance of understanding that we have done all we could to ensure our children and grandchildren will have as good a life and career opportunities as most of us have had.

Here's the tough question when it comes to job creation in critical high paying labor sectors. Who will be President in 2021? The answer has a direct bearing on the shape of our workforce and what jobs will be needed. Why? China's role in the global economy. We know products like steel, pharma, and healthcare are vital to our health and national security. Many of these are manufactured in China. Providing incentives and regulations to return these factories to the United States will not be easy.

But let's consider goods from China purchased by just Wal-Mart. Sam Walton, being a homegrown patriot, would roll over in his grave knowing the pickle his empire has gotten itself into.

  • Close to 90% of manufactured goods sold in Wal-Mart are made in China.
  • Near 90% of American consumers live within 15 miles of one of Wal-Mart's 3,900 locations.
  • American shoppers at Wal-Mart spend more than $36,000,000.00 every hour of every day.
  • Wal-Mart sells more goods than Home Depot, Target, Sears, and Costco combined.
  • The value of products for Wal-Mart passing through the port of San Diego each year is a larger sum than 93% of ALL countries Gross National Product (GNP)..... and that is only ONE port... one way.
  • What would happen to the Chinese and American economies if for some reason all the Wal-Mart stores closed or regulations (tariffs) provided a disincentive for purchasing Chinese manufactured goods?
  • Expand that beyond Wal-Mart to Apple, and other embedded manufacturing and logistics in China and we see the complexity of what we've gotten ourselves into by outsourcing jobs for cheap labor and now wanting to revitalize job creation from manufacturing in the USA.

Decoupling our dependence on Chinese manufactured goods and bringing some critical jobs back to America won't be easy, but necessary. It will require a complete understanding of the issues complexities and how to manage the business returns expected.

To accomplish this the current President has already laid the groundwork building the strongest economy in our history and is a tough negotiator in facing down CCP. He will also restore law and order to improve safety for a better work/live environment, putting those wayfaring youth back to work instead of a destructive path to socialism.

The future of job creation and work opportunities will depend on reelecting the President. Electing the alternative will lead us on a path to destruction of all we hold dear. You only look at TV news every night to see rioting in major U.S. cities to understand that. It's not just about jobs, but about the leadership necessary to accomplish the goal.

Mike Hammer a.k.a Hib