Covid-19’s Impact on the American Economy
How Has Demand in Sectors Dependent on Specialty Skills Changed Due to Covid-19?
Date: June 10, 2021
This report was commissioned and co-authored by Envoy Global
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New research from New American Economy finds that the pandemic has had a limited negative effect on the growth of industries that often rely on high-skilled foreign workers due to chronic labor shortages. The new report, COVID-19’s Impact on the American Economy: How Has Demand in Sectors Dependent on Specialty Skills Changed Due to Covid-19?, was prepared in partnership with Envoy Global.
Below are some key findings from the report:
Key Findings
- Despite the economic upheaval of the pandemic, there remains a shortage of highly skilled workers to meet the persistent demand of employers.
- Demand for computer-related workers is stable, and even growing. In fact, computer-related jobs made up 69.6% of all foreign labor requests in FY2020, a slight increase from FY2019 despite the Covid-19 pandemic.
- Demand for computer-related occupations is growing and outpacing supply. In 2019, the unemployment rate for computer- and mathematics-related occupations was 2.3%. By 2020 that had only increased by 0.7 percentage points, to 3.0%. By March 2021, their unemployment rate was 1.9%, lower than it was before the pandemic.
- Employers’ ability to fill these roles will be critical to America’s longer-term economic recovery. If businesses cannot find enough workers to fill technical and specialized roles that are often critical to their continued growth and innovation, U.S. companies may be hamstrung in their capacity to expand and operate efficiently.
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