Discover 14 opportunities in coronavirus

Less than a year on from COVID’s genome sequencing, vaccination programs are being rolled out around the world. And while the pandemic is far from over, it would appear we’re approaching its endgame, arriving there faster than anyone dared hope. The previous fastest ever vaccine to be developed was for Mumps - and that took four years.

The damage wrought by COVID, far from equalising, has been pointedly prejudiced. While the virus itself may struggle to differentiate between people, the world in which it operates has no such problem. Indeed, its structures have ensured COVID’s disruption of employment has fallen unevenly across regions - the experience of economists a case in point.

Although we’ve been told time and again that the pandemic doesn’t care about who you are, in reality it hasn’t affected everyone equally. Senior Editor William Pearse has already written about how COVID-19 has been harder on those from ethnic minorities and on poorer communities in the UK.

In 2020, INOMICS has once again carried out its salary survey, examining the state and health of the economics profession worldwide. As in previous years, the survey considered pay, sector, seniority, location, gender and educational background. Our 2020 survey was launched in the spring as cases of coronavirus began to increase exponentially around the world. Consequently, we added new questions related to the coronavirus pandemic to assess the effect of the crisis on economists and economics students.

Virtual options such as GoToMeeting and Zoom are viable solutions which allow conference organizers to host their events safely, in spite of the pandemic. Virtual broadcasting may also allow you to expand the options available to participants. Here’s how: Pre-recorded sessions:

In light of this, we’ve created a to-do list with pointers and tips, to help you welcome and acclimatize your newest team members while the pandemic is still ongoing. Publish and make employees aware of health and safety guidelines

Here we’ve compiled a list of tips and solutions to help make your recruitment plans more befitting. Job Advertising:

Coronavirus has had a broad impact on the global economy. Particularly affected were the tourism, trade and industrial sectors, including the export and import markets. Demand for and consumption of goods decreased, and so did the international freight transport sector. The COVID-19 crisis continues to severely affect the container transport market and the current economic situation gives no hope for short-term recovery.

Dubbed ‘the great equalizer’ at its outset, COVID-19 has often been described as picking its victims at random. Blind to race, ethnicity, and gender, it sees just a human body, a host that enables it to do what all pathogens are programmed to do: spread. While this, from a biological perspective, may be true, the disease’s sweep of the globe has been anything but equalising. Data from both the US and UK - who along with Brazil compete for the honour of worst pandemic response - show that in terms of cases and deaths, minorities are hugely overrepresented.

In the midst of the destruction it’s wrought, the lives and livelihoods it’s taken, and freedom it’s limited, COVID-19 has given us one thing that may yet prove positive - the opportunity to reflect. Under lockdown, we’ve been compelled to consider our pre-COVID lives, the aspects we valued, the parts we endured, and how things could be changed. Separation from reality has renewed our perspective. And it’s come at a convenient time, for a choice hangs in the air.

Necessity is the mother of invention, so the old proverb goes. And with coronavirus spreading through countries, deep economic recession clambering at its coattails, the collective need has rarely been higher. In just four months, almost 300,000 lives have been taken worldwide, and lockdown, in its various forms, is threatening untold livelihoods - as of May 9th, 33 million jobs have been lost in the US alone. True to the saying, some invention has been forthcoming as incumbents have scrambled to protect their citizens and economies.

The ascension of the Chinese economy to global preeminence is not without precedent. China was, after all, one of the largest economies in the world from the Song Dynasty (c.900 CE) until the 19th century’s ‘Great Divergence’, when European industrialisation facilitated the long period of Western economic dominance that generations alive today know all too well.

As the world is ravaged by COVID-19, governments everywhere are enjoying burgeoning support. A glance at approval ratings finds presidents, prime ministers, even autocrats, overwhelmingly popular, in some instances irrespective of their actual performance. Of course, this is unsurprising: there’s long been a history of populations coalescing around established leaders in times of crisis. Amid uncertainty, we find their increased visibility reassuring. Speaking to the nation they look competent and confident; we feel inclined to trust them, and more often than not, we do.

As the spread of the coronavirus continues across the world, many questions remain unanswered, not least what is going to happen to those thousands of students whose universities have also been affected by the pandemic. Schools, offices, museums, restaurants and bars are being closed across the world, and curfews are in place in particularly affected countries. Similarly, universities have begun shutting up shop, not willing to risk large swathes of students being affected by the virus.