LBST 330: Labour Migrants in the West

COVID-19 and the Future of Work

This lecture will introduce some of the concepts and topics covered in Labour Studies 101: Introducing Labour Studies, and 201: Workers in the Global Economy, to examine what COVID-19 has revealed about work, employment and labour markets in our current moment. We will look at who is considered an “essential worker”, what groups of workers have been most impacted by pandemic employment, and how COVID-19 has shone a spotlight on the ways that work-based inequalities reflect and shape inequalities related to race, gender, disability, age and immigration status. We will finish by examining what COVID-19 might tell us about the future of work in Canada.