Will the Knowledge Economy Survive the Pandemic?
| Author | Sophie E. Hill |
| Published date | 01 December 2020 |
| Date | 01 December 2020 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/2041905820978832 |
8 POLITICAL INSIGHT • DECEMBER 2020
The COVID-19 pandemic has
undoubtedly hit the most
vulnerable workers hardest. One
reason is that low-wage jobs tend
to be more difficult to do from home. Some
occupations, like carpenters, require access
to special tools and equipment. Others,
like nurses, require extensive face-to-face
interaction.
In Britain, despite a raft of support
measures from the government, lower
income households were much more likely
to report having difficulty paying bills
since the pandemic began. Ten per cent
of those in households with incomes of
under £10,000 and five per cent of those
in households with incomes of between
£10,000 and £20,000 reported that they
had difficulty paying bills before the
pandemic. When asked the same question
for the period since the pandemic began,
those numbers rose to 16 and 18 per
COVID-19 has hit the lowest paid hardest, but the pandemic has
radically changed white-collar work, too. Sophie E. Hill explores
the pandemic’s impact on the knowledge economy and asks how
innovation will survive in a world of Zoom calls and home working.
Will the Knowledge
Economy Survive the
Pandemic?
cent, respectively. Meanwhile, among
households with over £40,000 in income,
the proportion reporting difficulty paying
bills remained essentially constant at three
per cent (see Figure 1).
It’s not surprising, then, that both
policymakers and the public have
focused on the fortunes of the hardest-
hit workers during this pandemic. While
many highly-skilled white collar workers
have been relatively insulated from the
economic impact of the pandemic, the
sudden transition to remote working has
challenged fundamental assumptions
about the knowledge economy. Can
a geographically dispersed workforce
collaborate effectively? How many
Political Insight December 2020 BU.indd 8Political Insight December 2020 BU.indd 8 10/11/2020 15:4610/11/2020 15:46
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