The COVID-19 crisis will have fundamental impacts on the future of working lives. Daily forecasts predict a depressing picture for the working-age population. This makes it difficult to identify positive outcomes from the crisis for work, life and welfare. Poor government planning and decision making concerning health and economic responses have further added to the problems, rather than resolving them. This is exemplified by the lack of clarity, speediness and sufficiency of many of the schemes devised to help employees, employers and those unemployed. Increases in sales and recruitment by tax-avoiding online marketplace Amazon (up 2.53% in the first quarter of 2020, according to according to financial information website MarketWatch) provide just one example of the economic and labour market effects of this crisis being unfairly distributed. While online sales and delivery companies, food production and supply organizations, internet service providers and TV and film streaming companies are likely to be among the big winners from the current crisis, there will also be many losers.

We begin this chapter by setting out the predicted outcomes regarding employment, unemployment and underemployment, exploring the effects of the pandemic on individuals’ working lives, and reflect on issues emanating from the crisis such as the contribution of key or essential workers, the rise in flexible working, and clear gender inequality as well as inequality experienced by Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) groups. We then switch our focus to highlight potential lessons learned from the crisis in order to achieve better work and life arrangements that will benefit individuals and society as a whole.

Winners and losers

As a result of COVID-19, the rise in unemployment globally has been predicted to be between 5.3 million and 24.7 million from a base level of 188 million in 2019, compared with the increase of 22 million during the global financial crisis of 2008–09. Similarly, already high under-employment rates are expected to increase, since previous crises have shown that a decrease in labour demand translates into wage and working-hours reductions. Current UK figures show that one third of firms that are still operating are doing so on reduced hours, with the majority of these reductions taking place in the accommodation and food services sectors.