Hello and welcome to Working It.
I am back from the DO Lectures in Wales 🏴. Never heard of it? At DO, 100 attendees camp ⛺️ (in some luxury) for three nights on a farm belonging to its founders, David and Clare Hieatt, and listen to lectures (think TED, with more soul, and taking place in a barn). You eat, sleep, sauna and drink with strangers from all over the world. It’s about doing business — and life — differently; putting kindness, care for the planet and human connection first.
I don’t think I got as much out of the weekend as some fellow campers. (I didn’t find it “life changing”. Or not yet, anyway.) But the experience taught me a lot about listening to others’ stories and of getting out of our social and work “bubbles”. I also met inspiring people and found time for reflection. Interested? DO is back in 2027.
Read on for insight into trends in the US job market since Covid-19 sent workers home, five years and seemingly a lifetime ago. And in Office Therapy, an expert advises a reader who is resentful of a colleague’s clock-watching ⏰.
I love to get email about everything work-related, from insights into seismic workplace AI disruption to petty workplace grievances: [email protected].
Q: What was Covid’s lasting effect on jobs? 😷
A: OK, for Boomers
When millions were sent home, laid off or furloughed in 2020, some sectors were hit more than others. In the US, leisure and hospitality make up 11 per cent of the jobs market but they took 40 per cent of the losses during the pandemic. Overall, the low-skilled and consumer-facing job markets were most affected. Five years later, the effects are still rippling through the labour market, which has changed permanently.
During the pandemic I talked down the line to Nela Richardson, chief economist at the giant US payroll data company ADP. Nela was a guest on the Working It podcast back then, and this week we met in person in London to talk about some of the post-pandemic trends she’s seeing in the US workforce. The initial low-skilled jobs exodus during the pandemic was followed by efforts in 2021 and 2022 to attract those workers back. But, as Nela said, “the US had paid workers who had been temporarily laid off”. There was no financial incentive, in many cases, to go back to work. “And that meant employers were offering bonuses 💰, increasing salary by a lot just to attract people back.”
Nela went on: “So you had this push and pull, just based on cohort effects, initially during the jobs’ recovery. But there’s been a couple of things that I think will have lasting effects. First, there’s been an increase in youth coming into the labour market. A full percentage increase in young people in the labour market, and at the same time, for people 45 and older, we’ve seen a decrease in the share of that age cohort in the labour market.” Before the pandemic, wage growth was flat. Now, Nela said, average wage growth is about 2.5 per cent. “So that’s the punchline — that wages have stabilised but at this elevated level.”
The second big post-pandemic trend is that those older age groups now behave differently (at work! Although I recommend going down this Boomer/ Gen X bad behaviour rabbit hole). Nela said: “10,000 people every day turn 65 in the US 🥳, and the research shows that more people than expected went into retirement during the pandemic. But I don’t think they’ve gone forever.”
Nela and her team have been tracking what older US workers are doing in what’s known as the “silver economy” 👩🏽🦳. “One of the benefits of what we’ve been through in the last five years is that it’s easier to stay attached to an employer in a non-traditional way. Maybe I am retired and I come back as a contractor, where I have more ability to work on my own terms, but my knowledge doesn’t atrophy just because I’ve decided to leave full time employment.”
Many older people are also setting up their own businesses. Overall, sole proprietor businesses are now being set up at almost double the pre-pandemic rate in the US. “They’re not set up to grow headcount. They’re set up to provide a service and income, and that’s new and different. This is one channel among many that older working adults can stay active, but on their own terms.”
And the importance of work goes (of course) well beyond a pay cheque: “This is a quality-of-life issue for many people, not just income.” It’s about community, but also, as Nela called it, the benefits of “the ripe — the mature” for businesses. “There’s still a lot of expertise in that cohort that can be tapped for business and for an employer. So the silvering of the economy is also the future of work.” Take that, AI 🥊. (We did talk about AI, of course. Nela’s take was on the optimistic side: “You could see an outcome in which AI is job-producing.”)
Also: I really like the term “ripe” to describe older workers. (Not going to add an emoji for that 😳.)
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In a nutshell: Older workers are doing things differently since the pandemic, such as “unretiring”, setting up a new business, or going back into their former employers as contractors.
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Want more? The Age of Work podcast series for Marketplace features Nela Richardson, and host Kai Ryssdal, talking to people at the forefront of changing demographics at work. (Including a honey shop owner 🐝 in London’s Borough Market).
Office Therapy
The problem: I have a colleague who arrives at work at 9.30am and stands up at 5.28pm, two minutes for packing up, and out at 5.30pm. At lunchtime they take a full hour — and even if they are eating at their desk or in our office kitchen, no one dares disturb them. When WFH, they stop looking at email /Slack at 5.30pm 🛑. No one else is like this. We all do extra when needed. This person annoys me to an irrational boiling point. Do I say something or seethe with resentment?
Isabel’s advice: My skin is prickling in recognition. Clock-watching makes me see red 😡. I turned to Gabriella Braun, coach and consultant for teams and leaders. Gabriella suggested that the resentful among us first think about why this behaviour gets under our skin. “You might think, for instance, ‘why am I so compliant?’” 😳
We may be angry at ourselves and unconsciously envious of this person’s “don’t-care” behaviour. (You’ve probably seen TikTok videos suggesting that workers should only do the bare minimum for their employer — aka “quiet quitting” or “task masking”.)
Gabriella goes on: “The other thing is to try to instigate dialogue. So you say to the colleague, ‘I know it’s perfectly fair that you take an hour for lunch, but I find it quite hard. Can we have a conversation?’” Someone who leaves at 5.30pm may not even know that others stay later when needed. If you can explain to this colleague why their behaviours annoy you so much, Gabriella told me, “it might begin to dawn on them that some of their actions are very provocative, more than they realise, and seem disrespectful 💡”.
There is no clear solution, because your colleague isn’t actually doing anything wrong. “But there is a different view, and there is a coming to an understanding about these behaviours.” If you can increase understanding — on both sides — you’ll have scored a win 🏆.
Five top stories from the world of work
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Britain takes aim at office bullies and cover ups: The Financial Conduct Authority is expanding its rules on “non-financial misconduct” beyond banks to the 37,000 other financial services groups it regulates from September 2026. Martin Arnold and Ashley Armstrong talk to people with strong views for and against the changes.
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‘It’s a strength’: female business leaders back Reeves’ tearful moment There is lots of support from women at the top of business for Rachel Reeves, the UK chancellor who recently cried in parliament. George Parker and Ashley Armstrong report.
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‘Truthiness’ and why people love a good story: Recent revelations about the real events behind The Salt Path memoir by Raynor Winn (real name Sally Walker) demonstrate how much people want to believe a good story — and how inconsistent we are about truth. Emma Jacobs unpicks this fascinating topic.
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Pity the policymakers in the AI jobs tsunami: As we wait to see which jobs AI will replace, and what new sectors may emerge, Sarah O’Connor looks to Sweden, where workers can get grants to take time off from work to train in something new.
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The new age of geoeconomics: ICYMI, this FT Weekend essay by Gillian Tett is a great primer for the new world where domestic politics and geopolitics have a huge effect on business and commerce. A 1990 word, “geoeconomics” has been revived to describe this shift.
One more thing.
We’re all sick of hearing about the 4am risers with their CEO/techbro “morning routines”. But look beyond that and a whole new early morning world is emerging, with huge opportunities for business. My “huh, interesting” read of the week is Monocle’s The new morning economy: CEOs aren’t the only ones benefiting from crack-of-dawn starts. Writer James Chambers talks to academics and business people about the “morning economy” in Australia, where Sydney has cafés buzzing at 6.30am. Governments are starting to take notice: as our habits change (fewer people drinking alcohol, more of us going to bed earlier to “optimise sleep” 🛌), this might become a big trend globally. “It’s an untapped part of the day,” as Melbourne academic Anna Edwards points out.
This week’s book giveaway 📘
Resurgent, by Julian Birkinshaw and John Fallon, caught my eye, not least because John was once chief executive at the FT’s former parent company, Pearson. He’s now a professor of practice at Northeastern University, and Julian is dean of Ivey Business School. Resurgent’s subtitle is admirably clear: “How established organizations can fight back and thrive in an age of digital transformation.” The book grew out of a course that the pair created at London Business School about leading digital transformation, so this is a cheaper, more concise way to get access to that expertise. We have 10 copies to give away to Working It readers. To enter, please submit this form by Friday, July 18 at 5pm.
A view from the Working It community 📸
Here’s Ayesha Ali’s attraction-laden view from her office near the south bank of the Thames in London. Ayesha is a consultant in public health medicine at Guy’s and St Thomas’ hospital, and works from this office as well as in the main hospital. She says: “It’s such a privilege to use Big Ben as a watch (much better than a phone) and watch the Eye slowly rotating.”
Ayesha will receive a “lucky dip” of new workplace and management books. Please send us your view, grand or not, from workplace, workcation or home office: [email protected].
Read the full article here