Work after coronavirus: how will it change when the lockdown is over?

Entrenched unemployment? A permanent embrace of work from home? Several orthodoxies have emerged about the near future of employment

This is the first in our series on Life after lockdown, which looks at how the Covid-19 pandemic could change Australia for good

As Australia surveys the labour market wreckage of almost two months of pandemic-inspired physical isolation, several orthodoxies have emerged about the way we will work when the restrictions are eventually lifted.

One, based partly on a history that illustrates many jobs lost in big downturns never reappear, is that Australia faces entrenched unemployment upwards of 10% for at least half a decade. Another is that some sort of “new normal” will emerge whereby vast sections of workers will continue to carry out employment from home.

Related: Coronavirus fallout: one-quarter of Australians fear they will lose their jobs

Related: 'My desk isn’t usually as messy as this': Guardian readers share their work-from-home setups

Unless people need it to live, you’re going to struggle to sell it

Related: 'My desk isn’t usually as messy as this': Guardian readers share their work-from-home setups

It could just be that after the pandemic we are going to have to actually fight to go back to an actual defined, formal workplace

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