When the viral pandemic slammed violently into the U.S. economy a year ago, igniting a devastating recession, it swept away tens of millions of jobs. Even as viral vaccines increasingly promise a return to something close to normal life, the coronavirus seems sure to leave permanent scars on the job market. At least 30% of the U.S. jobs lost to the pandemic aren’t expected to come back — a sizable proportion of them at employers that require face-to-face contact with consumers: Hotels, restaurants, retailers, entertainment venues. The threat to workers in those occupations, many of them low-wage earners, marks a sharp reversal from the Great Recession, when middle- and higher-wage workers bore the brunt of job losses.
Why the pandemic left long-term scars on global job market
