UCC launch nationwide survey assessing Covid-19 impact on jobs

Researchers at University College Cork have launched a nationwide survey to capture personal stories behind Covid-19’’s massive impact on jobs and how we work.

The team hope their findings will shape future labour market and welfare policy as Ireland’’s begins the long road to economic recovery. They said: "These are extraordinary times and every story and response matters. The findings will be publicly available. Going beyond the numbers, they will provide an important contribution from lived-experience to discussions about how labour market and welfare policy is steered through the crisis and shaped into the future."

The coronavirus pandemic has had a devastating impact on the global economy. The contraction in Irish employment is now worse than in either Britain or the US, with more than one million people now receiving some sort of State income support.

From a position of near full employment about six weeks ago, dire forecasts this week predicted that unemployment will soar to 22% with a 10.5% fall in GDP. Official figures from the Department of Social Protection revealed that unemployment payments were issued to 584,000 people this week alone. These payments are in addition to the 212,000 people on the Live Register and the more than 46,000 employers who have registered for the Covid-19 wage subsidy scheme.

Tens of thousands of additional workers have seen their hours cut, or their working arrangements completely changed, with tens of thousands more people working remotely or from home. The unemployment figures are likely to worsen.

The online survey from Drs Joe Whelan, Fiona Dukelow and Tom Boland from the School of Applied Social Studies and the Department of Sociology and Criminology in UCC is anonymous and confidential. It will focus on each respondent’’s individual experience of unemployment or work disruption, and is particularly interested in hearing about:

• - having to stop work or losing your job
• - how people spent their time since the Covid-19 crisis began
• - peoples’’ hopes for the future
• - thoughts on the Government’’s jobs crisis response
• - people’’s opinions on work/life balance in light of the crisis

A spokesperson said: "The pandemic has created an enormous and unprecedented shock to the Irish economy and to people’s working lives. Unemployment is projected to rise to 22%. More than half a million people already rely on the Covid-19 Pandemic Unemployment Payment. While these are extremely sobering statistics, equally important are the stories and the lives behind the numbers."

https://forms.gle/FA3y194jMXy6cdBD8 and you can contact the research team at [e-mail]