A sign of just how paralysed the economy has become during lockdown is the staggering statistic that 11 per cent of the Scots workforce is on furlough, waiting at home for the pandemic to be over.
While vaccines will deliver us from the worst of the coronavirus crisis, the hard truth is that it will take the economy some time to recover from such a battering and some jobs that were there before lockdown will not exist afterwards.
Covid has changed our lives massively and will have a long-lasting effect on the jobs landscape.
Those most affected will be young, female and low paid.
In other words, those people that can least afford the shock of losing their jobs.
Anas Sarwar, the Labour leadership hopeful, highlights the issue although there can be few on either end of the political spectrum who disagree with him.
Support for jobs and the economy must not end suddenly in April when furlough is switched off.
Just as there has to be a gradual easing of lockdown, so support for jobs can be maintained in the sectors where it is needed.
A massive reskilling programme has to be started, not just to move people into new jobs but to train those in work for the possibility of Scotland latching on to the green revolution and the inevitability of the automation revolution.
Coronavirus has hastened long-term trends and just as we have had to run to catch up with the virus, political leaders of all shades have to move fast so that those most ill-equipped to deal with financial hardship are not the ones who pay the biggest price.
Jabs plan plea
The vaccination of more than half a million people across the UK in one day is no mean feat.
Both the UK and Scottish Governments have pulled out the stops to deliver the vaccines to as many people as possible as quickly as they can.
But there have been problems – and today we reveal fears that old people with learning disabilities are not getting the jab at the same time as those in mainstream care homes.
Commendable that it is that almost all the residents of Scotland’s care homes have been vaccinated, there is something profoundly unfair in a system which leaves out the elderly who live in homes for those with learning disabilities.
They should be treated no differently, or categorised in any section other than the same one as the vulnerable elderly who are mostly all on their way to receiving their first vaccine shot.
It may be a bureaucratic oversight but disabled discrimination in the vaccination programme should not be acceptable and ought to be addressed urgently.
When it comes to the vaccine rollout, no person should be left behind.
