Nearly all potential remote work is within this arena. This is the largest arena in advanced economies, accounting for roughly one-third of employment. Work in this arena requires only moderate physical proximity to others and a moderate number of human interactions. The computer-based office work arena includes offices of all sizes and administrative workspaces in hospitals, courts, and factories.In the longer term, the shift to remote work and related reduction in business travel, as well as automation of some occupations, such as food service roles, may curtail labor demand in this arena. COVID-19 forced most leisure venues to close in 2020 and airports and airlines to operate on a severely limited basis. Workers in this arena interact daily with crowds of new people. The leisure and travel arena is home to customer-facing workers in hotels, restaurants, airports, and entertainment venues.Some work in this arena migrated to e-commerce and other digital transactions, a behavioral change that is likely to stick. Work in this arena is defined by frequent interaction with strangers and requires on-site presence. The on-site customer interaction arena includes frontline workers who interact with customers in retail stores, banks, and post offices, among other places.In the longer term, work arenas with higher physical proximity scores are also likely to be more unsettled, although proximity is not the only explanation. During the pandemic, the virus most severely disturbed arenas with the highest overall physical proximity scores: medical care, personal care, on-site customer service, and leisure and travel. The short- and potential long-term disruptions to these arenas from COVID-19 vary. Lab technicians and pharmacists work in the indoor production work arena because those jobs require use of specialized equipment on-site but have little exposure to other people (Exhibit 1). Hospital and medical office administrative staff fall into the computer-based office work arena, where more work can be done remotely. For instance, our medical care arena includes only caregiving roles requiring close interaction with patients, such as doctors and nurses. This offers a different view of work than traditional sector definitions. In this research, we develop a novel way to quantify the proximity required in more than 800 occupations by grouping them into ten work arenas according to their proximity to coworkers and customers, the number of interpersonal interactions involved, and their on-site and indoor nature. COVID-19 has, for the first time, elevated the importance of the physical dimension of work. Before COVID-19, the largest disruptions to work involved new technologies and growing trade links.
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