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The purpose of this paper is to investigate to what extent secondary school students’ interest in intellectual development influences key abilities necessary to cope with the future of work. In the ever-changing world of work, deeply influenced by new technologies and cultural diversity in the workforce, young people must develop three essential traits to increase their capacity to quickly adapt to the situation in the labour market: openness to lifelong learning, critical thinking skills related to online information (of which online fact-checking is a key component) and openness to a multicultural society. In this paper, it is argued that these traits are directly related to young people’s interest in intellectual development but that additional interdependencies between these three traits complicate this equation.

The authors conducted a survey of secondary school students in the 12th grade (N = 1221). A hypothesized conceptual model was tested with AMOS software for structural equation modelling.

The findings show that students who are more interested in intellectual development are more open to lifelong learning. The relationship between intellectualism and lifelong learning is also mediated by online fact-checking. Moreover, the higher the interest in lifelong learning, the higher the openness to multiculturality. There is, however, no direct relationship between interest in intellectual development and multiculturality.

The results of this study will help making recommendations to three key stakeholders: young people, teachers and policymakers. They could have a practical impact on the labour market in the future.

This paper examines a topic that has not been systematically studied, namely, the possible influence of intellectualism on the future of work. The findings highlight the possible negative effects of a lack of interest in intellectual development on lifelong learning, living and working in a multicultural environment and processing online information.

The paper discusses the predictors of trust in the institutions and people involved in crisis management at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in Romania. Trust in institutions might be a key factor in the way countries affected by the COVID-19 pandemic deal with the crisis as people might be more willing to accept the restrictions and rules imposed if they trust the key institutions and people involved in managing the pandemic. The paper provides recommendations for key stakeholders to increase trust in people and institutions in times of crisis.

The authors draw evidence from a national online panel survey (N = 1,160) to investigate the main predictors of trust in this context.

The main results indicate that trust in institutions is positively correlated with news consumption and personal discussions about the pandemic, perceived incidence of COVID-19 fake news, belief in conspiracy theories and uncertainty about the future of the country.

To the best of the knowledge, this study is one of the few papers investigating the predictors of trust in the institutions and people involved in managing the current pandemic in a country in the Central and Eastern European region.