Industries winning, coping and losing in response to coronavirus.
Unlike most economic downturns the impact of COVID-19 has been felt disproportionately in certain sectors and industries. In many cases this has served to accelerate the impact of existing trends such as the move from High Street to online retail. The result is a widening of the gap between winners and losers.
Economic analysis from McKinsey[1] shows sectors falling into three broad groups:
Winners:- Pharmaceuticals
- Personal Products
- Software
- Technology Hardware
- Media
- Telecoms
- Food
- Retail
- Consumer Goods
- Professional Services
- Automotive
- Banking
- Insurance
- Financial Services
- Utilities
- Energy
This is being reflected in the growth and profitability of organisations in this top tier while others wrestle for survival; and in their demonstration of greater resilience to the challenges posed by COVID-19.
Within each sector organisations with the right systems and future-focussed mindset are outperforming their laggard peers. This can be seen through trends such as increased online content in education, telemedicine in healthcare and increases in remote working across the board.
Getting this right is of critical importance at an organisational level for sales, profitability and employment levels.
What does this mean for students and jobseekers?
When considering your move awareness of the sectors that are doing well and poised to continue to do well offers a useful guide to longer-term employment prospects.
Whichever industry you’re looking to work in, ask yourself whether a potential employer is well positioned to move forward and take advantage of emerging trends.
[1] The Great Acceleration, McKinsey. Chris Bradley and others. July 2020