Even before COVID-19, inequality levels were increasing and social mobility was decreasing, as people in the poorer segment of the population had fewer resources to invest in health and education. Inequality levels are expected to increase, but factors of social exclusion may change due to COVID-19. In a situation of enduring pandemic (as of 15 September, a second wave of infection was breaking out), uncertainty makes it difficult for unique scenarios to be built. However, all reasonable scenarios predict that GDP will lag below the baseline trends drawn in 2019. This gap GDP is crucial in understanding what will happen in the post-pandemic economy. In terms of unemployment, as far as OECD countries are concerned, the improvements achieved since the last financial crisis were undone in the first half of 2020. The percentage of workers in the private sector experiencing shorter working-time schedules is 35-55%. The overall effect on workers is 10 times worse than the 2008 crisis. Numbers that have never been seen in the modern era. There are also shortfalls relating to the effectiveness of social protection systems. The forms of employment contracts are important. In addition, workers in the low-income segment of the labour market are exposed to excessive risks. Self-employed workers and workers with non-standard working contracts have been disproportionally affected by the crisis. They amount to 40% of workers in the worst-hit sectors. They suffer from limited access to unemployment benefit or illness compensation. Low-paid workers are also more penalised (this is also according to Van der Hoeven, topic 6) by the effects of the pandemic. Persistent wage moderation – that also affected European workers when employment was steadily on the rise – may remain in place after the crisis. 3 As an area of vulnerability, particular mention must be made of young people and women: young people because governments are accumulating delays that may lead to structural unemployment; and women due to their family responsibilities and because sectors with more female workers than average are being hit particularly hard by the crisis. Today we need to redesign social protection schemes to eradicate shortcomings, make minimum wage schemes more reactive to shocks and enable vulnerable workers to obtain benefits from traditional social protection systems. The European Pillar of Social Rights promotes 20 principles that can drastically reduce inequalities if correctly implemented. We must address the “pandemic economy” and turn our attention to the short-term and medium-term challenges. In the short term, we must ensure H&S at work to all workers, including those in SMEs. It is also necessary to introduce flexible protection and training schemes for people who lose their job (with a more accurate SURE or its successor). In the longer term, a light must be shed on adequate minimum wages and widespread collective bargaining in order to revise labour market conditions, make labour contracts more stable and protect low-paid and vulnerable workers better. In order to avert major disruption on the labour market, short working time schemes (and the like) are very important to safeguard the income of wage-earners and to help companies bridge the moment – but they also have to be simple in nature and accessible to and usable by SMEs. It is important to extend lump sums to people who do not benefit from traditional social protection systems, including during the recovery phase, such as the self-employed and those with non-standard working contracts. One priority is to invest in the Youth Guarantees and activation measures targeted at young workers. As for women, it is necessary not only to open child-care facilities and close the pay gap but also to promote flexibility in working time arrangements and endeavour to eradicate the glass ceiling effect.