There are winners and losers in each financial crisis and every downturn reminds us what we can and can’t do without.

I was too young to understand or remember much about the recession in the early 1980s. I knew things were bad, but at the age of seven or eight, I was more concerned with playing football and riding my bike.

A decade later, I was far more aware of the impact and consequences of a financial downturn, especially as my dad worked in banking. Many friends in the financial industry lost their jobs and the personal toll was severe too, with houses and cars being repossessed, and families struggling to get by.

One of my dad’s friends who had been made redundant said his next job would do would be something people couldn’t do without and would be recession-proof.

Everyone has to eat, so something food related could be pretty safe. Everyone needs their hair cut, so that could be another option. In the end, he surprised us all and became a funeral director. In a mercenary approach to paying the bills and securing his family’s financial future. He knew restaurants and food shops come and go, and the beauty industry could be seen as a luxury, so he went with the only certainty in life.

It’s obviously a highly specialist and difficult job and not everyone would want to do it. I gather it also lead to some difficult conversations with his family, but it worked out well in the end and he was right, it was recession-proof.

Since then, I have often wondered if there are any jobs that really are guaranteed for life. As a newspaper journalist, I have seen the print industry decline rapidly over the past two decades. The demand for trustworthy news is greater than ever, but no one wants to pay for it – or pay a fair rate for it. And with the internet, customers don’t need a middle-man to find what they want, which is why advertising revenues have all but dried up for news companies.

The 2008 recession was blamed on banks and financial service industries for being greedy and lending to people who were high risk. The holy grail was the volume of customers, not the quality. In a nutshell, banks were gambling with other people’s money, lost and paid the price.

The coronavirus pandemic has hit everyone in every industry. Even those that were booming before March have been stopped in their tracks. Six months ago, people were dreaming of luxury holidays and being able to afford a Range Rover or luxury watch. Now, a full salary at the end of the month is all they desire.

There is one sector that has, almost accidentally, flourished through lockdown. With most of the world’s population confined to their homes, communications firms have come into their own, especially those offering video calls such as Zoom. Services such as this have proved invaluable to maintain personal connections with friends and families, and to keep businesses going.

And it seems Zoom is booming https://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/markets/article-8686935/The-Zoom-BOOM-Company-bigger-HSBC-Lloyds-together.html

Like many people, I use it regularly for work and it has been the only way my business was able to function at the height of lockdown.

And the likelihood that the virus will be with us for the foreseeable future means that Zoom and firms like it will continue to be in demand.

I have lost track of which week it was, but on a call with a client, they described how they were Zoomed out – exhausted by hours of video meetings and conferences. Now it has become a part of our normal working day, it’s probably time to get comfortable and Zoom back in.

What do you think? Are there jobs or sectors that are recession-proof?