The pandemic has created a new normal for work. Empty office space is proliferating in the nation’s cities. According to the Rand Corporation, 5 in 6 workers were able to stay employed in their same jobs through much of 2020 even with widespread stay-at-home restrictions because of telework, a new term for flexible work arrangements.
The consulting firm Deloitte says that the pandemic “zoomed” us forward into the future of work. According to McKinsey, 75% of company CFO’s are planning to shift at least 20% of previously on-premises employees to permanently remote locations. McKinsey sees the trend to remote work and virtual meetings continuing after the pandemic has ended.
Even the Ford Motor Company, a symbol of on–premises work, has announced it is giving 30,000 employees the option to work from home forever.
The pandemic proved that remote work can be productive, especially in higher level and creative job categories. Expensive office space in large urban areas need no longer be a cost of doing business.
The pandemic also proved that people who have the means want to live where they have space between them and their neighbors. An intriguing study of change of address forms filed with the U. S. Postal Service found almost 16 million people moved in 2020, many of them permanently. Large urban areas lost the most movers during the pandemic.
One could argue that the moves from big cities are part of an ongoing trend, but the data shows a surge of new interest in alternative living arrangements. New York City and Philadelphia, two cities we have the closest proximity to, lost movers at a paces that no one predicted.
The changes to work and living present Cape May County with an opportunity. This is a wonderful place to live. One long-standing drawback has been the lack of year-round jobs at good salaries. If families can bring their jobs and salaries with them, the opportunity for the county is potentially huge.
There is a drawback. The pandemic also showed that in-person instruction is critical to childhood learning and development. Remote learning will probably have a more prominent role in k-12 education than it did before the pandemic. It has the potential to allow some students to proceed at their own pace in special areas. It can be a vital part of a program for excellence. But the importance of in-person instruction with the social and psychological context of student interaction was clearly validated by the pandemic.
That means that when parents seek to exercise their newfound flexibility to live where they choose, the quality of schools and curricular programs will be a critical factor.
Our local school districts have done a remarkable job through the pandemic year. No one should underestimate the difficulties they faced. But we know from the years prior to the pandemic that our schools rank in the middle of the pack by just about every state measure. Now we are faced with the added burden of relentless cuts in state aid, over $6 million just this year.
It is time to ask ourselves why we have 16 operating school districts in the county. It is time to look at the potential benefits of other arrangements that might allow resources for greater curricular variety and improved quality.
For those who argue this is not the time to add burdens regarding our schools, the answer must be that you are wrong. This is the time. Cape Issues has called on the County Commissioners to take leadership in a planning effort for our schools. We endorse that call.
In Cape May County we have it all to offer. The new forces shaping society have the potential to reshape the county. They have the potential to reverse our long slide in population and to balance the aging portions of our population with the right mix of younger individuals, returning a vibrancy to county life that has started to wane.
Key to grabbing the opportunities offered is recognizing that the time to act is now.
