POST-COVID
WHAT WILL THE WORLD LOOK LIKE AFTER COVID-19?
Five Schroders fund managers reveal the main ways they expect Covid-19 to change the way we live and work.
The coronavirus pandemic is acting as a catalyst, accelerating a number of trends, such as an increase in the number of people working from home and higher levels of e-commerce. Whilst some of the impacts of Covid-19 will be temporary, there is a growing sense that we are now at a pivotal moment and many of the changes will become permanent. We spoke to five fund managers to find out what they think will be the most significant long-term impact of Covid-19. Robin Parbrook is a fund manager specialising in Asian equities “Covid-19 is going to have a number of significant impacts on how we live and work. This is more of an acceleration of trends that were already there, rather than a sudden change in
behaviour. This could include the end of the 9-5 working week, the end of office life as we know it. If not our children, then certainly our grandchildren, will find it very peculiar that anyone would choose to get on a packed train at 8.30 in the morning to go and work in an office with thousands of other people when you didn’t actually need to. During the current crisis, Schroders has 98% of its workforce working very successfully from home. The technology to do this has been there for some time, Covid-19 merely accelerated the process.” “The other key change will be the return of “big” government. The only way to get out of this hole is to spend money and government expenditure is going to come back to the fore. Big government is back and governments are going to play a much
“Big government is back and governments are going to play a much bigger role in society, whether we like it or not.”
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