Only one in five young Australians think their productivity has improved while working from home (WFH).
Youth-focused publisher Pedestrian Group has released the findings of a reader survey to get a better understanding how COVID-19 is impacting the way young Australians think, feel and behave.
The survey went live on all six Pedestrian Group sites - PEDESTRIAN.TV, Business Insider, POPSUGAR, Gizmodo, Kotaku and Lifehacker - on April 2. In less than four days, some 10,300 responses were collected. 55% of respondents were aged 18 to 34.
The research is called: Is It 2021 Yet? How Australia’s Youth Is Coping With A Once-In-A-Century Pandemic.
Key findings for the 18 to 35-year-olds:
- 30% say their biggest personal concern is the prospect of a family member contracting COVID-19, neck and neck with the impact of COVID-19 on their financial/job security (also 30%). Only 4% say their biggest concern is contracting COVID-19 themselves.
- 19% are unemployed as a direct result of COVID-19 - and females are 25% more likely to have lost their jobs than males. This is particularly true across PEDESTRIAN.TV and POPSUGAR, which have strong female readerships who are more likely to work in hard-hit industries such as retail and hospitality
- While those who are WFH say they quite enjoy it, it’s not great for business: only 20% of those who are currently WFH say their productivity has increased and 43% say it’s actually decreased.
- In terms of what’s keeping people occupied in isolation, 53% are reading more news online and cooking more (44%), while 24% are having less sex and 34% aren’t laughing as much as they were before COVID-19
Matt Rowley, CEO of Pedestrian: “We were blown away not only by the volume of responses to this survey, but also the speed with which they came in. The depth of data allowed us to drill down and extract more meaningful insights that go beyond the usual comparisons to give a really good picture of how young Aussies are feeling about the ‘new normal’ at this point in time.”
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