"Over the past few weeks, COVID-19 has drastically disrupted everything from the global economy to everyday life. Key features of the pandemic include its impacts on the world of work. For the past 8 years, the On the Move Partnership has been studying the mobile labour force, the estimated 16% of the Canadian labour force that engages in extended/complex mobility to and within work. Constraining and managing mobility of all kinds is a core feature of pandemic response. Politicians and chief medical officers tell us on a daily basis to go home and stay home. The result has been massive layoffs and widespread unemployment, as well as an increase in working from home, primarily among white collar workers. The mobile labour force is partially comprised of millions of transportation, health, agricultural, construction and other types of workers whose work is deemed essential and who are thus still on the move. In Canada and elsewhere, pandemic planning initially paid little attention to these workers. ..."

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