The COVID-19 pandemic is the biggest health crisis for generations, and it is having a devastating impact on the lives of people across the world. Along with the direct harms of the pandemic, the short- and long-term indirect harms of the pandemic also need to be investigated. These include mental health and wellbeing impacts, physical harms and loss of earnings and employment. It is important to understand these indirect harms, including across different groups, and how they can be mitigated to minimise the negative impact of the pandemic. This review looks at the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the workforce.

The review gathers together published data and impact evidence to provide a better understanding of the short- and longer-term indirect harms of COVID-19 on three workforce groups:

• Education workers such as teachers;
• Childcare workers including Early Years workers and childminders; and
• Social workers and selected other workers in the social care sector.

It then looks at how these harms can be mitigated.

The review aims to answer the following questions:

• What is the current evidence on the harms caused by COVID-19? Why are these a problem?
• How can we mitigate these short- and longer-term harms?
• What, if any, policy interventions have been demonstrated to be successful in mitigating short- and longer-term harms? These are likely not specific to COVID-19.
• What is currently happening in policy to mitigate harms?
• Where would further research be important?

Project Team:

Gaby Atfield (Principal Investigator)

Beate Baldauf

Erika Kispeter

Project Duration:

March 2021 - August 2021

Funder:

DfE funded this work following a recommendation from SAGE