Tag: Jobs

4 Important reasons why women are more affected financially due to the COVID – 19 outbreak

Two focuses of my of my blog are Current Events and Financial Literacy/Money. There are so many layers to the Coronavirus/Covid-19 Crisis/Pandemic. In addition the human health issues, there have also been financial after effects in the area of jobs. Something that’s not being discussed in all circles is the effect of the pandemic on the finances of women. The following guest post is entitled, 4 Important reasons why women are more affected financially due to the COVID – 19 outbreak.

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The coronavirus outbreak has devastated the entire world economy and it has almost reached the middle of this year. But still, humankind is eagerly waiting for a cure to stop this pandemic. Till now, approx 2,941,218 active cases were found worldwide, and nearly 357,979 deaths were reported due to this pandemic. Doctors and healthcare providers are working day and night to provide good medical treatment to the infected people. Medical researchers and scientists are working hard to find an antidote to this virus infection. Unfortunately, we still need more time to get the results.

According to CNN, the COVID-19 pandemic has heavily affected health care associates worldwide more than common people. Most of those associates are young and among them 70% are women. Institute For Fiscal Studies (IFS) director Paul Johnson informed the BBC Today programme – “There are those young people who are in those jobs at the moment or were in those jobs before COVID[-19] hit, and if they’re not able to get back into work then there may be longer-term consequences for them. We know that periods of unemployment when you’re young can have long-term effects. Traditionally you’re going to be looking to start work in September, [but] now couldn’t be a worse moment to be doing it.”

In China’s Hubei Province, about 90% of healthcare associates are women. In the U.S., that number is around 78%.

So, practically women are more exposed to the COVID – 19 virus than men. As a result, women are experiencing the impact of the pandemic more than men, on physical and mental grounds.

According to a report given by PayScale, financially women have faced the biggest hit from the COVID – 19 outbreaks within the last 6 months. Another report revealed by the Organization for Economic Cooperation And Development, new jobs are being created mostly considering the men, not women during this difficult economic situation. This might be a reason why women are financially getting down day by day. During the lockdown, it is also becoming difficult to find another income source.

In the UK, nearly 70% of the two million single parents are currently employed, but 3 out of 10 single parents working are living in poverty. Unfortunately, approx 90% of single parents are women.

These aren’t the only reasons women are experiencing hardship due to COVID – 19 pandemic. Check out the below-mentioned causes that should get your attention.

4 Important reasons why women are more affected financially due to the COVID – 19 outbreak

1. Women play a key role in family caregiving

After reviewing the above-given data, it is clear that women are the prime workers who saved time apart from their work, to provide care to their families. Due to the lockdown, most of the schools and workplaces are closed now. So, kids, elders, and other family members are at home 24-7. Due to this reason, most of the female workers have to be at home and away from work. They are attending family members who are ill or can’t take care of themselves.

When these female workers return to their work or try to rejoin, they’re being offered 7% less salary compared to male employees, who are working in the same designation. PayScale’s director of research, Sudarshan Sampath, verified this situation in PayScale’s 2020 State of the Gender Pay Gap report this way – “The coronavirus pandemic has exposed these cultural faults with our economic system. There is a strong likelihood they will not get rehired or they’ll come back on reduced terms.”

2. Unpaid sick leave creates a financial hardship

During the coronavirus outbreak, nearly 67% of private sector employees, and only 30% of low-wage workers who earn $10.80 or less/hour, may get the benefit of paid sick leave. Apart from that, only less than 50% of part-time workers may get the option of taking sick leave.

According to the report given by OECD.ORG – “In some countries, sick-leave compensation only covers a small fraction of the previous wage and / or is shorter than the recommended period of self-isolation for people with COVID‑19 symptoms. For instance, Korea and the United States have no generally applicable statutory obligations for employers to continue wage payments in case of illness and also do not provide for statutory public sickness benefits (OECD, 2018[1]). Comprehensive spending data on employer-provided sick pay is not available for the United States, but a quarter of U.S. workers do not have access to paid sick leave at all (rising to one half for low-wage workers), and two thirds of workers who do accrue less than 10 days of paid sick leave per year (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2019[2]). With the “Families First CoronaVirus Response Act”, the United States introduced two weeks of paid sick leave for workers impacted by the COVID‑19 virus, which will initially be paid by employers but be fully reimbursed by the federal government.”

Fortunately, from the very beginning of the COVID -19 outbreak, international organizations such as Facebook, Microsoft, and Salesforce, utilizing few problem solving tips for business and employees, agreed to provide help to their workers. The companies allowed their workers to get increased benefits during sick leave.

The American government has also worked hard on a bill that would help employees to get paid leave benefits. President Trump signed the Families First Coronavirus Response Act. The bill is focused on providing paid leave to employees who did not have it and extending paid leave for employees having only a few days. The benefits are applicable to the employees stuck at home due to the pandemic.

“The new law grants two weeks of paid sick leave at 100 percent of the person’s normal salary, up to $511 per day. It would also provide up to 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave at 67 percent of the person’s normal pay, up to $200 per day.”

*Data courtesy – the washington post

But there is a catch! According to the emergency legislation, only 20% of employees can avail paid leave benefits. Apart from that, small and midsize companies may provide these benefits for employees impacted by the coronavirus. Companies having 500 or more workers aren’t allowed to provide such benefits to their employees.

As per a calculation by the Center for American Progress, approximately 19.3 million U.S. employees (about 12% of 159 million workers) may face financial hardship without getting paid during sick leave.

3. The wage gap and job loss trigger monetary problems

62% of minimum-wage and lower-wage workers are female. These workers may experience a greater risk of job loss when businesses such as restaurants, departmental stores, hotels, and airports are shutting themselves down and firing their employees.

Even if women perform well in their designation, and maintain regularity, they may lose their jobs due to the business shutdown. Though women are less paid compared to the men, working in a similar job profile and designation, the effect will be quite harmful. This is also a reason that women are experiencing too much stress, and unfortunately, they don’t know how to remove that stress at work.

Women are affected more financially as a disproportionate number of women work in industries that are severely affected by the lockdown. These may include retail, leisure, and hospitality sectors. 17% of female employees are working in lockdown sectors, whereas mem workers are merely 13%.

In the country, 1.4 million citizens lost their jobs in March., with a 0.9% increase in female unemployment and a 0.7% increase for men.

If you analyze the controlled pay gap, the difference in payment will be seen clearly between men and women, having a similar job profile. Women earn 98 cents per $1 earned by men. According to PayScale, women are now getting 81 cents for every $1 earned by men (the ratio of median earnings).

During this outbreak, the wage gap is getting bigger than before. Female elementary school teachers earn 92 cents per $1, and women doctors earn 94 cents per $1, compared to men doctors. Female registered nurses earn 98 cents as usual. Unfortunately, black women earn 62 cents on the dollar and Hispanic women 54 cents for the same designation.

With such low income, women employees often experience difficult financial problems, such as unpaid credit card debts, medical bills, utility bills, kids’ education costs, housing costs, etc. As low-income earners, women may opt for help from non-profit credit counseling agencies and seek options to become debt free again.

Fortunately, the discrimination between genders and the wage gap has been gradually changing in a positive direction. As per PayScale’s survey – In 2018, women employees earned 78 cents per $1 earned by men. In 2019 the amount becomes 79 cents (+1), and in 2020, 81 cents (+3).

4. Unpaid caregivers are mostly women

Women around the world provide most of the unpaid caregiving work. As per the International Labour Organization (ILO), women employees normally render 76.2% of total hours of unpaid caregiving work, and it is more thrice as much as men employees.

Women employees are experiencing a shortage of paid caregiver policies. Currently, only 16% of private-industry female employees are allowed to receive paid caregiver leaves. Due to this reason, women taking too much sick leave for family members may trigger monetary problems in their lives.

● Approximately 43.5 million caregivers have provided unpaid care to an adult or child in the last 12 months. [National Alliance for Caregiving and AARP. (2015). Caregiving in the U.S.]
● About 34.2 million Americans have provided unpaid care to an adult age 50 or older in the last 12 months. [National Alliance for Caregiving and AARP. (2015). Caregiving in the U.S.]
● 65% of care recipients are female, with an average age of 69.4. The younger the care recipient, the more likely the recipient is to be male. 45% of recipients aged 18-45 are male, while 33% of recipients aged 50 or higher are male. [National Alliance for Caregiving and AARP. (2015). Caregiving in the U.S.]
● Upwards of 75% of all caregivers are female, and may spend as much as 50% more time providing care than males. [Institute on Aging. (2016). Read How IOA Views Aging in America.]

Data courtesy – caregiver.org

As health care services are getting unavailable day by day due to the increased number of infected patients, many COVID-19 positive cases need to be treated at home by women caregivers. This may also increase the possibility of becoming infected during such an awful time.

Endnote

So, these are the 4 prime reasons why women are getting the hit more than men. Women share a large chunk of employment in various industries such as healthcare, restaurants, social assistance jobs, preschool, kindergarten teaching, flights, etc. Due to the outbreak, most of these industries are shutting down their business. Due to this situation, women all over the world are experiencing huge financial difficulties to maintain their lives.

Author Bio- Patricia Sanders is a financial content writer. She is a regular contributor to debtconsolidationcare.com . Her passion for helping people who are stuck in financial problems has earned her recognition and honor in the industry. Besides writing, she loves to travel and read various books. To get in touch with her (or if you have any questions regarding this article) email her at sanderspatricia29@gmail.com.

5 Jobs For Tough People

Two key focuses of my blog are Career Discussions and General Education. Some careers and jobs are more well suited for certain types of individuals. There some jobs that are well suited only for ‘tough’ individuals. The following contributed post is entitled, 5 Jobs For Tough People.

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To do some jobs well, you have to be tough. Whether you’re working in the public eye or handling difficult and emotionally-sensitive conversations, there are some roles you can only do if you’ve got thick skin and aren’t afraid to disagree with people. Here are five jobs for tough people you might want to consider if you’re feeling brave and looking for a career path to suit your personality.

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1. Process Server
A process server gives people sensitive legal documentation, like eviction notices, summons, subpoenas, and divorce decrees. They can also perform skip tracing to locate individuals that have ‘skipped town’ and undertake financial investigations. You have to be tough to succeed in this industry as let’s face it, people don’t enjoy receiving court summons or being tracked down. If you think you can do it, though, it’s a generally well-compensated way to enter the legal profession.

2. Mortician
Being a mortician was ranked in the top three of the most challenging jobs in 2017. You have to work face to face with death every day while supporting the deceased’s family. The hours are long, and you’re in a dark room, but on the positive side, at least you get to give the person a proper send-off by cleaning, embalming and dressing them ahead of their funeral. You’ll also be making their family happy and providing dignity to the person who has died.

3. Roofer
A roofer has to brave heights, scaffolding, and long periods of the year without work. If you’re a roofer by trade, you might find that you have to diversify over the winter months where work is scarce and could be canceled last minute. You also have to be prepared to walk over precarious surfaces and have to invest in many construction training courses to ensure you are safe and secure when working. It’s the perfect career for people that love working outdoors and aren’t afraid of heights.

4. Corrections (Correctional) Officer
At a potentially over-crowded, understaffed prison, you’ll need to keep calm in a tension-fuelled environment while maintaining control of a prison population. Corrections officers consider the job challenging but rewarding, as they can help individuals improve their lives as part of their rehabilitation. The career path and daily tasks of Corrections (or Correctional) Officers depend on the type of prison you go into. As a career, it’s excellent for training and development as you gain firsthand experience of everything from conflict resolution to self-defense.

5. CEO
As a CEO, you might be responsible for the morale and productivity of thousands of employees, as well as the company’s future as a whole. An unsuccessful CEO is often quickly identified and replaced, so the pressure is on to drive the company to success. Although you’re financially rewarded, the most stressful CEO positions are often considered as the heads of Finance, Tech, or FinTech giants. You also have to make unpopular decisions about company restructuring, as the only people above you are the board.

If you’re tough, one of these career paths may be for you. You might want to enter the legal profession or want a career that allows you to work outside, but choosing one of the above jobs might be the challenge that you need in your life.

Staying Safe When You Have A Dangerous Job

The first principle of my blog is Creating Ecosystems of Success. Two key focuses are Career Discussions and Health/Wellness. Not all jobs have the safety of working in an office setting with carpets, computers and cubicles. Some jobs require getting dirty and some degree of potential hazard. In the latter set of jobs, it’s important to think about your safety at all times. The following contributed post is entitled, Staying Safe When You Have A Dangerous Job.

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(Image Source)

No one likes the idea of being hurt when they are doing their job. Governments, businesses, and individuals have all been working for a very long time to ensure that workplaces are safe and secure, though this is something which some jobs make almost impossible. Unfortunately, some people simply don’t have the luxury of doing something safe each day. Whether you work as an industrial diver or as a security guard, though, you can always take steps to make sure that you’re not putting yourself at unnecessary risk. To help you out with this, this post will be exploring some of the steps which can be taken to make even the most dangerous jobs a little safer.

Following Policies

While a lot of the rules which you have to follow when you’re working may seem a little over the top, they are always there for a reason. Safety gear will protect your body from accidents, while policies which dictate how people are allowed to move around in dangerous environments will help to prevent them from happening in the first place, and this makes these rules well worth following. Of course, after a few years on the job, it will be easy to become complacent, and you may find that your employers have lost track of the policies they need to follow. In this case, researching the rules for yourself will be a good idea.

Working Together

Many of the world’s most dangerous jobs often end up being done by people on their own. This may not always increase the risk of an accident, but there are some roles which simply shouldn’t be done by people who are left to themselves. Truck driving is a great example of this, with a lot of accidents occurring when people are forced to drive for a long time without a proper chance to rest. Team truck driving jobs are considered much safer, as you will have someone with you as you drive, and this means that you won’t have to be focused for the whole journey.

Being Attentive

It’s not always easy for industries to put the right rules in place for their employees. While some companies manage to keep their teams safe, others will miss out on crucial areas, and this can often leave big gaps. Being attentive will give you the chance to spot these areas, and a little bit of creativity and initiative will help you to come up with ideas to make them safer. For example, if you have to work on wet floors all the time, it would make sense for your employer to provide you with shoes which are good for this environment. They can’t fire you for asking for this, with a lot of employers valuing this sort of input from their teams.

Keeping yourself safe should always be your priority when you’re at work. It doesn’t matter if you get your job done if you get hurt in the process, and the vast majority of employers will want to keep their team as safe as possible. To make this work, though, you have to keep your eyes open.

The Surprising Professions That Could Be Replaced By Robots

Two of the major focuses of my blog are Career Discussions and Technology. Several new and novel technological innovations are under production and are coming online. One is robotics which are projected to soon impact every facet of world economies. It’s important to understand how robots will impact our world going forward. The following contributed post is thus entitled, The Surprising Professions That Could Be Replaced By Robots.

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Image Credit

We’re all aware, in this day and age that most things are run by technology and that it’s overtaking more and more aspects of our daily lives. However, although there’s always a plus side to technology being able to manage things in our lives, such as making things more efficient and taking away the need for us to do everything on our own, there’s still the downside, and one of the main downsides is that many of the professions that we’ve come to rely on being done by people are now slowly seeing more technology, AI and even robots being introduced and changing how these jobs are done.

Most of us know that there are some professions that just make more sense to be run by technology and that it’s safer and better for human involvement to be taken out of these, however, in this post, we’re going to share with you some of the most surprising ones that people wouldn’t really expect to be replaced by robots, but that are slowly moving that way.

Lawyers:

Being a lawyer is still one of the best and most esteemed jobs out there to have, but as anyone who’s ever worked with one knows, they are expensive, and although most of the aspects of a lawyers job isn’t going to be overtaken by robots anytime soon since it still needs that human interaction, there are definitely parts that can be automated and done by robots and this is a big risk to those who work in this profession since this is going to impact a lot of the services they can charge their clients for. Only time is going to tell just how much automation by robots is going to impact the lives of those who wish to become or already are lawyers, but it’s definitely not immune from AI and it’s something that lawyers should be aware of so that they can make the necessary changes in the things they learn for their jobs to make them more desirable to clients.

Data Entry Professionals:

Data entry is something that’s considered to be a repetitive, and therefore, quite a boring and monotonous task, so it’s not really surprising that with all the technology we have today that data entry is something that someone’s found a way to automate and have replaced by robots. However, this certainly doesn’t mean that just because robots are taking over your job that they’re automatically going to be doing it better than you – after all, technology still makes mistakes, so as long as you’re able to adapt and perhaps change the role of what you do, for example, oversee the work the robots are doing, then you could find that you’re still able to keep your job with a little bit of a different role.

Taxi Drivers:

You may think it sounds crazy to consider the idea that a robot could overtake something like driving, but people who work as taxi drivers, Uber drivers, etc, are slowly going to find themselves being replaced by robots and driverless cars as this technology becomes more of the norm. Of course, this may not be the norm for quite some time to come, but if we’re being honest, then we know that’s definitely where the world is going, so it’s something that we need to prepare for. This doesn’t mean that if you drive a taxi or work for Uber that you’re going to be out of a job soon, it’s just something that you should be looking to adapt with because it’s always better to be prepared for these changes that are inevitable with the rise of AI and overall technology.

Engineers:

Due to the nature of different types of engineering, it was always going to be one of the first professions to embrace AI and robots in the workforce since the very idea of engineering is to make things work better and to grow with technology. Whilst engineering is going to be one of the main industries that sees this dramatic shift towards technology, robots and automation in the daily workforce, it doesn’t mean that engineers are going to be eliminated completely – it’s just some things that are able to be done more quickly and efficiently by robots, but when it comes to things like designing Statewide Bearings’ range of linear motion products, people are still going to be very much the preference for doing this kind of work, so it’s really not something you have to worry about too much until the technology is built that can do this better, and at the moment, it’s just not here.

Journalists:

This is probably one of the most surprising ones in this list because writing is something that humans do, and as much as technology is great, we know that it doesn’t have emotions and that’s what makes great writing, storytelling, and hard hitting journalism, so most people would really struggle to believe that something like an algorithm or robot would be able to write an article to the same level that a human would be able to, but this is actually proving to something that’s perfectly possible.

However, this doesn’t mean that journalists need to start worrying about their jobs – if they’re willing to move with the times and actually work alongside the robots and embrace automation and AI, then this could actually help journalists do their jobs better and create content that’s even more personalized to the reader, so this could essentially mean that in the future, instead of reading the same paper that everyone else is reading, you could be reading one that’s completely personalized to you thanks to the advances in technology that allow for the creation of this kind of content.

Chefs:

This is another area of upcoming automation and AI tech advances that’s really going to be surprising for a lot of people, and although it’s certainly not the end of chefs as we know them, things are definitely changing – perhaps for the better, which is of course going to depend on your perspective. For example, places like Burger King and Mcdonald’s have been hiring people since the beginning to carry out tasks like flipping burgers and take customer orders simply because in the past these were jobs that needed to be done by humans, but now there’s far more technology that can do this, and in many of these locations around the world, this technology has already been implemented and is proving to work well. Now, this doesn’t mean that there’s no longer a need for people to work in these places, but they can work more efficiently alongside technology.

When we think of more traditional restaurants, similar technology is being introduced – whether it’s ordering from your table using an iPad instead of having a waiter take your order, or even having robots take over some of the tasks that a chef would normallt do, it’s a great example of how people and technology can work well together.

Financial Analysts:

Like those who pursue a law career, anyone who works in the financial services or banking sectors may think they’re going to have a job made for life, but these industries are fast seeing technology and AI automation creep in. The reason why financial services are seeing such a big boost in this technology is because it really helps get things done quicker, more efficiently, and more effectively and accurately than humans can.

Although it’s predicted that over 30% of banking sector jobs will be lost to AI within the next 10 years, this doesn’t need to mean the end of a career – but simply adopting a different approach and moving with the advances instead of away from them.

Customer Service Professionals:

With more and businesses operating online and 24 hours a day, the need for solid customer services processes is increasing, but since nobody can be online 24 hours a day and hiring a team to work these round the clock hours is going to be a bit of a hassle – not to mention expensive, unless you’re some massive company, then automating this is a great idea, and luckily it’s becoming more common for tools and apps, and even AI technology or bots to be able to completely manage your customer service for you.

Medical Professionals:

At first glance, this one may seem completely crazy and even scary, but it’s honestly a much better thing than you probably think. The reason being is that medicine and the whole healthcare industry is one where we absolutely want to see as much advance as possible, and although there’s never going to be anything that can replace the role of doctors, nurses and medicine, there are certainly things that can be brought in to make, not only their jobs easier so that they’re able to focus more on the patients they’re caring for, but also this technology benefits the patients.

In some hospitals there are now robots that come in and carry out tasks like dispatching medication and bringing it to patients, taking meal orders and bringing food, but also helping with things like surgery so that these procedures are less invasive and make for shorter healing times than in previous times. The use of AI and robots in medical care is one area where it should definitely be welcomed.