If the coronavirus pandemic produced its own brand of anxiety for American workers trying to stay healthy while balancing job and family demands, the coming return to "normal" will pose a new set of challenges, Reuters reported. Like whether to first try to claw back all the free hours of labor donated to companies during the crisis, or shift to a "future-proof" occupation to insure against the next one, or figure out how to compete with the robots being deployed more widely because of the pandemic. Some industries are recovering faster than others, with the worst-hit sectors continuing to lag. Even though U.S. gross domestic product is near its pre-pandemic peak, jobs are rebounding more slowly, suggesting a potentially prolonged period of adaptation ahead for both workers and companies. Payroll processor ADP set a baseline of sorts in a recent survey of more than 32,000 workers globally that showed just how unsettled the landscape is as the pandemic, at least in the major developed economies, reaches its endgame. Over the past year, for example, workers often said they benefited from the flexibility of working from home and wanted it to continue. Companies and their employees have both reported improved productivity. But it turns out some of that "flexibility" was consumed by a substantial increase in unpaid overtime, according to the ADP survey, which was conducted last fall. That means the higher productivity may be something of a mirage, not the outcome of better work-life balance but value donated to firms by workers worried about staying employed. Workers globally reported unpaid hours rose about 25%, from 7.2 to 9.3 per week. In the United States, it more than doubled from 4.1 to 9.
