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The Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of having a robust healthcare system for every country across the world. Increasing healthcare investment can not only create new jobs amid the pandemic but also create a more productive population. Macroeconomic influencers share their views on the Covid -19 impact.

Amanda Larsson

Amanda Larsson, campaigner with Greenpeace NZ, tweeted on how investment in care in the UK can create 2.7 times new jobs that are equivalent to investment in construction. Investment in care can also create 6.3 times as many jobs for women and 10% more for men.

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Larsson added that the New Zealand government should consider investing in care as 10,000 out of 11,000 people in the country who were unemployed due to Covid-19 are women. The tweet was based on report from the Women’s Budget Group, an independent think tank, on how investment in care can stimulate employment and reduce gender employment gap.

Developing a better care system will require a major proportion of the population to be employed in the healthcare sector thereby increasing the overall employment rate. Further, it helps in creating a healthier and productive population.

Adam Posen

Adam Posen, president of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, shared a tweet comparing the impact of the pandemic on Australia and Sweden. Some experts initially hailed Sweden’s strategy to not implement lockdown measures in the country due to coronavirus.

Sweden’s strategy, however, led to some of the highest death rates in the world due to Covid-19. Although the country’s economy seemed to be performing well initially, the second quarter figures indicate that the strategy to avoid lockdowns may not have worked.

Sweden’s GDP fell by 8.3% in Q2 despite keeping its economy being open. Comparatively, Australia’s GDP fell by 7% during the same period with better economic and health outcomes.

Heather Long

Heather Long, an economics correspondent at the Washington Post, shared an article on the rising number of unemployment claims in the US. The article noted that more than 800,000 new unemployment insurance claims were made in during the last week indicating the weak labour market.

In total, more than 29 million people were receiving unemployment assistance until the middle of August. Although these numbers are slightly lower than those in March, they are still high compared to historic figures. Expiry of the unemployment insurance programmes is expected to further increase the unemployment rate in the future.

Christopher May

Christopher May, professor of political economy, shared an article on inflation in UK housing market. He noted that everyone who was expecting that the economic shock caused by the coronavirus would address the inflation in the housing market will be disappointed.

The pandemic has increased the prices to nominal average price range during August, he added.

https://twitter.com/chrismayLU/status/1301375902224396288