The nation's response to the novel coronavirus — through stay-at-home orders and social distancing — could put 44 million to 57 million jobs at risk of layoffs, furloughs, and reduced income, according to a new report by McKinsey & Company.
The report examined which jobs will be most vulnerable to inactivity from the pandemic.
McKinsey started by categorizing the 804 occupations found on the US Bureau of Labor Statistics by degree of vulnerability to inactivity, using job characteristics from the Occupational Information Network (O*NET).
It found that 191 of the 804 occupations are highly vulnerable to short-term impacts because they aren't made up of essential workers or typically include close physical contact.
Afterward, the researchers further examined the change in US demand across industries during the pandemic, using various reports and McKinsey estimates of consumer spending. The researchers assumed that a change in demand will affect 80% to 100% of part-time jobs and 20% to 50% of full-time jobs. Self-employed jobs were not included in the analysis.
The largest number of vulnerable jobs fall in food services, with 13.4 million at-risk jobs, followed by customer services and sales, with 11 million at-risk jobs.
The finding is especially troubling amid a large number of layoffs and a recent spike in unemployment because many of the workers employed in the at-risk jobs aren't full-time workers, according to McKinsey.
"Up to 86 percent of the initial impact affects jobs that were paying less than $40,000 per year. Almost all (98 percent) of the affected jobs paid less than the national living wage of $68,808 for a family of four," the researchers wrote.
Jobs in agriculture, management, finance and insurance, scientific or technical industries are the least at risk to short-term impacts from the coronavirus. Low-vulnerability occupations include jobs that could be done at home, have limited physical contact with others, or are considered essential.
Across jobs, McKinsey found low-income workers and those who have low educational attainment, as well as small businesses, are most at risk to the short-term effect of the pandemic.
This is similar to survey results of Americans conducted by Pew Research Center, in which those with higher income and a higher educational background were more likely to report working from home during the coronavirus.
The following are five various jobs from the two most at-risk occupations from McKinsey's report. Along with the number of at-risk jobs, we included the median annual and hourly earnings from May 2019 and minimum educational attainment from BLS.
Read the original article on Business Insider