WaPo | “I didn’t
think it was going to happen to me just because of where I worked,”
Kerr, 29, said of his first substantial job as a civilian. “We’re going
to have a ton of bills, and I have no idea how they’re going to get
paid.”
The
coronavirus pandemic has sent the United States hurtling toward
recession with startling haste, as dozens of states and cities have
taken drastic measures to battle the fast-spreading disease that has
claimed more than 27,000 lives worldwide. People are sequestering
themselves and nonessential businesses have shuttered as communities
adapt to social distancing, the best defense against infection. But as
last week’s record-shattering 3.3 million jobless claims indicate, the
near-shutdown is taking a toll in almost every corner of the U.S.
economy.
White-collar
workers, who make up a greater share of the economy than ever before,
are increasingly getting caught in the fallout.
“When I
was talking to my parents at first, my dad said, ‘This is going to be a
really big impact for service industry workers,” said Erica Newell, who
was laid off this week from her job in client success at a Salt Lake
City start-up. “But I’m seeing people that are not in the service
industry, like people in tech and whatever, and those people are being
hit really, really hard. So I think it’s safe to assume it’s everybody.”
Blue-collar
jobs, which generally involve trade, manufacturing and labor, had once
been the backbone of the nation’s economy. But the shift toward
automation and a more service-based economy in recent years has caused
many of those jobs to disappear while professional, or white-collar,
jobs in tech, business management and consulting have grown.
White-collar workers in sales, business management, technology,
professional and administrative jobs make up about 54 percent of the
U.S. economy — about 80 million positions, according to a Washington
Post analysis of Census Bureau data from 2018, the most recent year
available.
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