Job searching amid the COVID-19 pandemic has proved tough for many. Businesses are either halting hiring or laying off employees. Some job-seekers, though, are finding a number of openings that essentially didn't exist before the pandemic.
"The pandemic's created a paramount shift in how companies are approaching safety for their employees and for their customers and so that’s led to a number of jobs that you didn’t really see much of before," says Patrick Beharelle, the CEO of recruiting company TrueBlue. He says a number of never-before-seen job openings are entering the market, including temperature checkers, disinfecting cleaning services and many more.
"Reconfiguration specialists. These are folks that are restructuring facilities for more social distancing, so wider aisles, as an example. Decontamination technicians. These are folks that are cleaning masks and PPE for healthcare workers and so these are positions you just didn’t see a lot of before," says Beharelle.
Some of the positions, such as temperature checkers, are likely part-time or temporary.
"And then there's positions like contact tracers. Really, those didn't exist at all before and these are positions where folks work out of their homes and essentially are call center-type employees. They make anywhere from $15 to $25 an hour doing contact tracing," says Beharelle.
At-home tech support is an in-demand field right now with openings.
“There are virtual event planners, or people who help organizers change events that were supposed to be done in person into online virtual events," says Julia Pollak, with Zip Recruiter. Pollak says the job industry is also helping some entrepreneurs and small businesses who've turned to making face masks.
"I think these jobs will be around for a quite a long time, until we have a vaccine. And even then, a vaccine is not a magic bullet. We have many, many diseases that have not been eradicated even though we have a vaccine," says Pollak.