What We Learned from Employers in 2020 and Hope to Learn in 2021
For all its bad news and stress, 2020 was a year to reflect and learn and at UpSkill America, we learned a great deal.
After COVID hit, our nation underwent a difficult reckoning on racial injustice and inequity brought about by the murder of George Floyd and other Black men and women. Shortly after, we began receiving calls from employers, education and training partners, and reporters asking how these double pandemics as Clair Minson, Founder & Principal Consultant at Sandra Grace LLC, coined were affecting companies’ upskilling plans.
With the support of the Strada Education Network and Walmart.org, our Economic Opportunities Program research team and I began working on a 12-month, three-phase study, to speak directly with employers to learn how the pandemic and heightened attention to racial inequities have influenced company employment plans for the months and years ahead.
Reflections on 2020 and the Future of Work
At the beginning of the year, it was impossible to imagine what would unfold over the course of 2020. As the year comes to a close, we are confronting the ever-worsening tragedy of a global pandemic, and hoping that 2021 brings relief and recovery from the health and economic toll that it has taken on our country and the world. The pandemic has dramatically accelerated many of the trends shaping the future of work, from e-commerce to automation to remote work. Its disparate impacts on people of color and women reflect the ongoing urgency to develop equitable solutions. Though these trends and challenges predate the pandemic, it has made policy conversations about how best to help workers confront these challenges even more critical.
A New Tool to Address the Racial Wealth Gap
From the Black Lives Matter movement, to the pandemic, to the election, the year’s events have put systemic inequality front and center. The persistent and growing racial wealth gap, long-standing disparities in access to opportunity, and the disproportionate impact of the pandemic on small businesses owned by people of color have rightfully received a lot of attention.
However, recognizing those problems doesn’t tell us what to do about them. The Institute’s Economic Opportunities Program and Business Ownership Initiative have been working on some of these issues for decades. One of the thorniest problems we are still tackling is how to get more capital to small businesses owned by women and people of color in low-income communities.
While the low quality of many “essential” jobs has become more apparent amid the pandemic, the issue of low-quality jobs is longstanding. This publication is based on a survey of organizations about their efforts to advance job quality. Survey responses were gathered before the effects of the pandemic took hold, and understanding perspectives on job quality then can give us important insights as we tackle the urgent challenge of improving job quality now. Many organizations are working to improve job quality both within their own organizations and externally, but they face a variety of challenges. They are eager for more tools and resources to support their efforts.
Moving Beyond Gratitude: Opportunities to Improve Essential Work
Description
Among the many unexpected lessons of 2020 was a recognition of the importance of essential workers. We saw how much we rely on the people who work in our food systems, who care for our children and our loved ones, who deliver packages, and who keep our public spaces clean. We learned to say thank you to so many of them, and in this season of thanks, we reflect on how we can do more than say thank you by improving the quality of essential jobs. As the year draws to a close, we discuss the important role of essential workers in our economy and society and a variety of approaches for improving essential work.