[Infographic] How Hourly Workers Are Impacted By Coronavirus

Suddenly, companies that never before considered a remote workforce have sent their teams to work from home. Businesses based on face-to-face transactions are finding ways to do them online, limiting interaction, or putting up protective screens to shield workers. Even warehouses, typically bustling with employees handing off materials and boxes to each other, are keeping distance - a standard six feet - between all employees.

While all workplaces are changing, at Bluecrew, we wanted to know more about how the coronavirus pandemic was affecting hourly workers.

The hourly workforce is at the core of our daily business - our Crew Members are still going out to help essential businesses stay fully staffed and to help keep our nation’s supply chains running smoothly. Hourly workers are critical for essential businesses, like grocery stores and fulfillment centers that are still operating, which means they’re on the front lines of the pandemic. At the same time, many hourly employees who work in the hospitality industry or in retail businesses have been hit hard by shelter-in-place mandates and store closings.

What do they think about COVID-19’s impact? How do they see their employers adapting? Are the CARES Act benefits reaching them? What are they most concerned about?

These are the questions we asked in our survey of more than 1,650 Americans, a cross-section of the American workforce - individuals in salaried positions, hourly employees, and gig workers across the country. 

The results showed hourly and gig workers filing for unemployment in greater numbers, facing challenges in accessing government assistance, and holding more concerns about their ability to make ends meet compared to salaried workers. Hourly workers are bearing the brunt of both unemployment and uncertainty during the current, COVID-19 fueled recession. 

Check out the infographic below for a quick overview of our findings, or download the eBook for deeper insight into how the workforce has been impacted by coronavirus.

Beyond the statistics in the infographic above, the eBook details the 6 trends that our survey revealed about the way COVID-19 has affected individuals in key segments across the American workforce.

These effects may be short-lived - clear byproducts of a global pandemic and associated recession - but they may also indicate greater truths about how hourly workers live and work. While their jobs have always been essential o our way of life, they were only recently named “essential jobs.” The coronavirus pandemic has shone a light on how necessary hourly workers are to our communities’ daily operations. It has further accentuated the necessity of W-2 worker protections and benefits (something Bluecrew has always believed in) as gig workers across multiple platforms have made calls for better protective equipment, pay, and benefits.

We don’t yet know what American businesses will look like on the other side of this pandemic and recession, but we believe that companies that adapt their processes to keep employees healthy and safe will come out on top. 

Contact our team if you’d like to further discuss these findings, or if you need help scaling your W-2 temporary workforce.