Which jobs will be in demand post-coronavirus?

As I wrote in my June 28 column in this paper, a tragic result of the coronavirus is that tens of millions of Americans, including many New Hampshire citizens, will be unemployed when the post-pandemic era begins. For many, their only means of survival will be the trillions of dollars that the federal government will borrow to provide them with distributions.

However, during the post-coronavirus era, many types of jobs will be in great demand because of federal legislation and programs. Some of these jobs will be in demand because of their social contributions, others because of the dollar value of their products and services, and still others because of both of these factors.

I’ll briefly discuss three relevant types of jobs in this column and additional jobs in later columns.

There are two types of infrastructure jobs – service jobs and structural jobs.

Infrastructure service jobs are those that provide or improve widely needed foundational services and products. Infrastructure service jobs include food production, data storage, processing and communication, and energy production and supply.

Infrastructure structural jobs are those that involve the repair of widely needed physical structures and multi-structure facilities and their design and construction.

These structures include, for example, harbors, tunnels, airports, public buildings such as schools and libraries, hospitals and other health care facilities sewer systems, dams, bus and train stations and bridges.

Why will infrastructure jobs be in demand in the post-coronavirus era? As we all know, infrastructure repair and creation both in New Hampshire and nationwide have been severely neglected for decades. During the post-coronavirus era, as during the Great Depression, the federal government will undertake massive infrastructure programs for two main reasons.

First is to remedy our decades-long infrastructure neglect and thus to obtain concrete value for survival distributions. Second, and even more importantly, it will provide jobs and wages to millions of unemployed individuals who are able to work.

The bottom line: You are likely to be in demand during the post-coronavirus era if you are skilled at any kind of infrastructure work.

In the post-coronavirus era, the federal government will devote far greater attention than in the coronavirus era to addressing looming climate change disasters. This is because, at least by the time the post-coronavirus era arrives, the need to do so will be unmistakable and undeniable to all political parties. Thus, in the post-coronavirus era, the federal government will provide or support a wide variety of green jobs – i.e., jobs that address and remedy climate change issues.

Green jobs will include, for example, the manufacture, sale and provision of renewable energy, including solar power, wind power, hydropower, tidal power, geothermal power and biomass power.

Green jobs will also involve scientific research and development directed at protecting the U.S. and the world from ecological disaster; and they will include every type of service that supports this research.

The bottom line: You are likely to be in demand in the post-coronavirus era if you are skilled in performing any kind of green job or if you or your company produce or sell any kind of product useful to those performing green jobs.

In the post-coronavirus era, a major concern of the federal government will be the risk of yet additional pandemics. Thus, the federal government will conduct and support massive programs to identify possible new pandemics as soon as they appear and, as soon as they do, to prevent them from infecting Americans.

These programs will include cooperation with other nations to share information about possible new pandemics; nationwide sewage inspection programs to detect new viruses (a key method of pandemic detection); infection testing; contact tracing; serological testing; and the “on-shoring” of the manufacture and warehousing of personal protective equipment and other anti-pandemic products, including medicines, now manufactured and warehoused abroad.

The bottom line: You will be in demand during the post-coronavirus era if you are skilled in any type of anti-pandemic service or if you or your company manufacture or sell anti-pandemic products.

(John Cunningham is a Concord tax and business lawyer. He has published “Limited Liability Company Operating Agreements” and “Maximizing Pass-Through Deductions under Internal Revenue Code Section 199A.” Both are the leading books in their fields.)