Work from here, there ... anywhere? In Punta Mita, Mexico, one resort is preparing to offer WFP (Work From Paradise) and LFP (Learn From Paradise). Around 30% of the global workforce is expected to toil remotely in the coming months.
Economic cost of 5 months of Nepal lockdown The country faces an even bigger challenge than Covid-19: economic collapse ........ all indications are of that SARS-CoV-2 is here to stay, and that it will resurface with added virulence in winter. .......... The Rastra Bank estimates that it will take at least nine months after the lockdown is fully lifted for the economy to come back to previous levels. This means Nepal is not going to see a recovery this fiscal year. The central bank says 22.5% of those employed in the country have lost their jobs in the past five months of lockdown. .............. “Everything is at a complete standstill, there are no transactions taking place except people buying food from day to day” ...... “The question is how long before businesses run out of cash to pay salaries, and families run out of savings.” ............ Even worse hit is the tourism and aviation sector where revenue is zero for the past five months. Banks had given loans worth Rs1.1 trillion for hotels and restaurants, and had lent Rs40 billion to the transport sector. They are not in a position to replay even the interest, let alone the capital.......... Even the sale of alcohol products are down by up to 80%. .......... the real barometer of just how bad the crisis is can be felt in the banking sector where on the one hand liquidity is overflowing because of reduction in loan disbursement, but collection has also shrunk because of defaults. The print editions of the Nepali language press in the past month are full of bank notices for auctions of collateral property. However, even if the property is up for auction, they may be no buyers. ............ The government had told borrowers they had a grace period till December to repay bank loans without being put on the defaulters’ black list, but it is looking like even that is being optimistic......... most businessmen have given up on a Dasain-Tihar revival this year. .......... “This year we are just trying to get by, there is no hope for sales.”
Ways Nepal can rebound from COVID-19 There are plenty of examples from the past of Nepalis turning crises into opportunities ............ One major impact in Nepal is the sudden return of large numbers of migrant workers who have lost overseas employment due to the shrinkage of the global economy. Even if economies in host countries stabilise in the next couple of years, it could be another five before they invite workers back from Nepal. .......... In 1959, large numbers of Tibetan refugees fleeing the Chinese takeover arrived in Nepal. Timely response to the crisis by development organisations and Nepal government led to the launch of Nepal’s Tibetan carpet industry. At its peak in 1993, the sector employed 1.2 million people and brought in one third of Nepal’s foreign currency earnings. ................... One proposed sector is high-value agriculture on under-utilised land in the Tarai and mid-mountain valleys. A high percentage of the returnees come from farming families and are already familiar with the basics. They can acquire the skills required for high-value agriculture once they see the potential returns from growing vegetables and fruits or raising livestock. ............ The amount of food Nepal imports from India annually provides a ready substitution market and the ecological niches provided by Nepal’s many micro-climates provide the opportunity for producing off-season fruits and vegetables which can be exported to India. ........... In most parts of the Tarai, groundwater is accessible through shallow tube wells. The national grid has reached all municipalities in the Tarai and increasing numbers of farmers are able to use electricity for irrigation pumping. ......... a total investment of $170 million by the Government of Nepal and donors would enable 250,000 farmers with an average of a third of an acre to generate over $2 billion in vegetable sales over five years, with $750 million in annual sales going forward. While the government’s investment of $500 per farmer would be used to reduce the cost of purchasing simple greenhouses and solar pumps, each returnee would spend around $1,540 on seeds, fertiliser, land leases and farm equipment.
Breaking Faith With the Electoral College Republicans want to punish Americans for not working—but it doesn't make economic sense the benefits are extremely popular with the public, including nearly half of Republican voters polled ......... for many Americans, working simply isn't safe .......... The latest research finds no correlation between the generosity of unemployment benefits and job finding. Current high unemployment rates are the result of a jobs shortage, not a sudden widespread lack of motivation. ........... The truth is that Conservative opposition to expanded unemployment benefits may have less to do with the amount of the benefits than who they think is receiving them. It's impossible to disentangle the politics of the safety net from the anti-Blackness that indelibly shapes them. .......... white Americans think recipients of safety net programs are primarily Black (despite the fact that the majority of recipients are white) and that Blacks are lazy and undeserving of assistance .......... when whites perceive threats to their relative advantage, their racial resentment increases, in turn leading to heightened opposition to safety net programs .......... Whites' belief that Blacks were lazy has been used to justify policies, like slavery, that coerce Black work for centuries. Modern work requirement policies for federal assistance, a particular obsession of the Trump administration, were actually born of a political compromise between New Deal reformers and Southern Democrats who wanted to ensure that Blacks did not have access to New Deal cash assistance programs like Aid to Dependent Children. This racist exclusion aimed at Black people, by propping up anti-safety-net ideology for generations, has also spilled over and harmed every other marginalized group in the U.S. ......... The Trump Administration's current threat to cut unemployment benefits, justified by the myth that these benefits are disincentivizing work, is just the latest in a long conservative tradition of attacking the social safety net by relying on faulty, racist stereotypes.
Transformational reform is the only way out for India, says Rajan According to Rajan, what probably keeps the government from offering more stimulus measures is that India had moved into the coronavirus crisis with a 9% fiscal deficit (for both the Centre and states) and the tendency of policymakers to take sovereign credit ratings as a symbol of its economic management. ........... According to Rajan, one area for policy reform is bankruptcy. The existing model, which prefers auctioning off even reasonably viable companies for default, could be replaced with one that encourages more debt renegotiation without replacing the existing management, as the economic circumstances have changed during the pandemic. ......... suspending fresh bankruptcy cases was unfortunate as it views bankruptcy resolution as a punishment and not necessarily as a way of restructuring capital structure and ownership. ......... having a fine-tuned bankruptcy system was important as banks, especially public sector lenders, were not willing to go for out-of-court negotiations for debt restructuring.
DO WE REALLY NEED THE OFFICE? What the WFH boom means for the future. ...... I exercise in the same space in which I answer emails and Slack messages. ....... anywhere from 5% to 15% of Americans worked from home before the pandemic. As of April, half of Americans who were employed pre-Covid now report working from home .......... rowing outbreaks across the country (and new evidence of indoor airborne transmission) may keep many other offices closed for an indeterminate period of time ............ despite a recent outbreak in Beijing, many offices have remained open since late February, largely due to widespread monitoring and aggressive testing and tracking ......... Covid-related restrictions are still largely in place in office buildings across Europe. ........ the trajectory toward more remote work for knowledge workers has been accelerating for years ....... “The share of the labor force that works from home tripled in the past 15 years ......... remote work benefits productivity, but this wholesale shift is forcing us to recognize, call out, and reject dangerous norms, such as the “ideal worker” fallacy that disproportionately affects parents and, primarily, women ........... a bleak picture of how forced remote work is impacting U.S. mothers in heterosexual dual-career households ......... the “gigification” of knowledge work ............ open offices had plenty of unintended consequences and that spaces can be designed to produce specific performance outcomes ........... how long employees will work from home (some companies, like Twitter, say “forever”) ............ whether a “hybrid” or rotational working environment is effective
Google just changed the WFH game for everyone The company told workers on Monday that they can work from home until July 2021. ...... "Google is a trendsetter," said Mauro Guillén, a management professor at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and author of the forthcoming book "2030: How Today's Biggest Trends Will Collide and Reshape the Future of Everything." And the competition is always paying attention. "The first thing that will go through every [Silicon Valley] executive's and human resources teams' minds is: When do we introduce a policy that matches or beats it?" said Arran Stewart, co-founder of Job.com............. Google still didn't go as far as companies like Twitter (TWTR) and Facebook (FB) that have already announced that some employees will work from home permanently. ....... Twitter said in May it will allow some of its workforce to continue working from home "forever" if they want. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said as many as 50% of the company's employees could be working remotely within the next five to 10 years. .......... remote workers also give companies access to a much wider talent pool. ......... something that could create -- for certain industries -- a truly global labor market ........ For companies who are planning to make work-from-home succeed for the long haul, there has to be a focus on measurable outcomes ......... managers need to lay out objectives and time frames and give employees the freedom to get things done when required.
