Do you really think that people will leave their house to go and buy a coffee for €3 instead of just buying a Nespresso machine and getting one for 50 cents? There will be a big chunk taken out of the consumer economy and it won't be replaced. The same young people who will end up paying for all of this will be the same ones who are hardest hit economically.There are a lot of cafes, restaurants and shops grown up around large businesses but I can see a lot moving to the suburbs to cater for the work from home people. They will follow where the people are.
What about the people who work in the cafe's and shops and restaurants? What about the hundreds of thousands of jobs that will be lost?I see this as a win-win situation. A recent survey in the US found that, on average, an employee will save $3,500 per annum and an employer will save $11,000 per employee per annum.
Office space will be much smaller. Office blocks could be converted to social housing. Or levelled and rebuilt as social housing. This will go a long way to solving the housing crisis and may steady house prices.
Google has converted new office space in Dublin to a food market.
Office workers (as were) can stay at home to read/write emails and talk on the phone rather than commute to an office to do the exact same thing.
Offices won’t be gone forever. Just reduced. Showing your face one day a week will suffice.
“Commuterville” which is normally a ghost town will come to life. Instead of being busy with traffic during rush hour only, there will be people there and life during the day. Cafes, etc., will open up.
Losing one’s job will lose its stigma to an extent. It won’t be as obvious that Mr/Mrs AcrossTheRoad isn’t leaving for work anymore. The pretence of continuing to leave the house every morning at the same time will disappear.
The environment is another big winner.
What interests me most is what impact will it have on career choices. In the past, for many that go to third level education, they know they’ll spend their working life in offices. But not any more. Home versus office working is now a new variable.
In the past a potential web developer saw his/her future working in a funky digital hub in a cool city (at least, that’s the way RTÉ would present it). In the future that same developer may see a future at a desk in a box bedroom. And may choose a different career instead.
Last March when the Covid pandemic kicked in I was thinking, “this is amazing, we are living through history.”
Now I’m also thinking, “this is amazing, we’re living through as seismic as event as the Industrial Revolution”.
What about the people who work in the cafe's and shops and restaurants? What about the hundreds of thousands of jobs that will be lost?
What about all the tax revenue which will be lost?
Do we cut public services or do we cut public sector pay by the amount of money those people are saving by working from home?
Do we greatly reduce public transport or massively increase the subsidy it receives?
What about the people who live in small houses and apartments who don't have the space and infrastructure to work from home?
The discussion around the up-side or working from home is very blinkered towards the college educated middle classes.
Good point ref carbon emissions.There's a bit of a tipping point really. If we could get rush hour levels of commuters and traffic down to about 60-75% of what it was in January 2019, and keep it at that, it would take all the strain off the transport system and mean planned expensive upgrades may not be needed.
There would still be significant demand in city centres for services.
If the level drops to where we have empty buses and DARTs and LUAS during rush hour, then that's a different issue - but would it get that far?
We will be picking up the bill for carbon emissions if we carry on as we are.
The likelihood is that if they are not spending their money on lunches and coffee and impulse shopping after work they will mainly spend it online or save it. Fewer people will bother leaving the house to buy coffee but Nestlé will make a nice few bob selling Nespresso capsules.What will people WFH spend their money on now that they aren't commuting \ paying for lunches out?
Tax revenue will be lost in the city centre, but why won't spending elsewhere make up for it?
Coffee shops and eateries and services in the 'village' suburbs of Dublin and its hinterland will benefit.
The likelihood is that if they are not spending their money on lunches and coffee and impulse shopping after work they will mainly spend it online or save it. Fewer people will bother leaving the house to buy coffee but Nestlé will make a nice few bob selling Nespresso capsules.
It will still be spent but it won't circulate as much around the economy. Some of the margin that was left circulating will leave the country. There's a reason that Jeff Bezos isn't short of money.There will be disruption, shifts in patterns of where money is spent and on what and you are right I think in what it won't be spent on.
But I disagree in that it will still be spent in different patterns.
It will still be spent but it won't circulate as much around the economy. Some of the margin that was left circulating will leave the country. There's a reason that Jeff Bezos isn't short of money.
The people who have been impacted most from the lockdown will also be impacted most from these changes in spending patterns; younger lower skilled lower paid people.
The distribution of the LPT will have to be adjusted. For every €1 spend per person on local services in Dublin there's €90 spent in Leitrim. If there is a greater balance of population and economic activity then there will be a rebalancing of State spending.I'm just not convinced the Irish Exchequer will be a net loser, though Dublin City Council could be.
“Commuterville” which is normally a ghost town will come to life. Instead of being busy with traffic during rush hour only, there will be people there and life during the day. Cafes, etc., will open up.
Is that any different to what you might have done pre-Covid?Still planning my bathrooms and basically all the bathroom taps and sanitary ware, the kitchen sink and kitchen tap will come out of Germany, the flooring ordered is French, the tiles ordered for the main bathroom are from Italy, carpets will be likely British - and the workers who will install all of the stuff are Romanians.
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