Impact of COVID-19 on Employment Sectors
Of late, the world, as we know it, is running through a catastrophic effect. A not so unique but still unprecedented and unfortunate health crisis evolved in the wake of pandemic COVID-19 is bringing about challenges in every part of the world and creating global disruption in academic, socio-political, socio-economical skyline in the largest possible scale and also disturbing human physical and mental health at local levels. People from all strata of society have been affected immediately and if general speculations are to be believed, both local and global effects will take considerable time to die down and industries may take a year or so to bounce back to pre-pandemic level of economic output as a recent ILO (International Labor Organization) report suggested that, currently, almost 80% of the global workforce is affected due to partial or full work place closures.
However, in the long run, it is also expected that after some initial hiccups, the upward trend of economy for most of the major sectors around the world will continue to grow and the general importance and relevance of the existing industry will not suffer. For instance, the sectors like academics, health, and legal will remain largely unaffected and will continue to support world economy substantially. Large economies around the globe are already coming up with robust financial plans and aids to boost their major industries further. It is found that more than two-third of the countries in Europe and Central Asia, more than half of the countries in Americas and Asia have implemented social protection measures.
According to ILO estimates, sectors like education, health, public administration, financial activities, utilities, construction and mining will experience a very low to medium impacts due to COVID-19pandemic. This COVID-19 pandemic is throwing so many challenges to us. But deep inside the statistics, there are some interesting dynamics. Firstly, young professionals and students, all over the world, are constantly being encouraged by academicians and educational stake holders to go for higher studies because in future more complex and competitive markets will be looking for young individuals with better skillsets as COVID-19 is set to create a more interesting employment scenario as far as type and volume of job creations are concerned. Secondly, no one can deny that even in these hard times, the world of Information Technology, Data Science and Analytics are playing an important role to manage and understand the global scenario with expected efficiency. The world is online now. Boost in digital media and digital economy, development of cybersecurity, extensive uses of Robotics Technology will certainly provide momentum to the world of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) based tools and eventually make AI and ML industry much stronger than ever before. The world of computer and data science is surely going to get an impetus due to this COVID-19 pandemic. Thirdly, we also believe, supply chain management will come up with smarter principles and solutions and will be much better prepared for any similar global crisis in future. Fourthly, it is also speculated that smaller economies in the world may now score better on their manufacturing sector. The health sector around the world is already getting encouragement as it is the single most important sector to tackle the ongoing menace. This sector may see a fundamental makeover on academic and professional level. Consequently, pharmaceutical and biotech industries are poised now to take a great step forward.
Worldwide, across the industries, smarter managerial and cost management principles are expected to come up to tackle any future crisis. All these innovative and interestingly new ideas will definitely create more job opportunities and new skills to go for. As most of the major industries are going to be promising, new opportunities in the near future will see growth. We sincerely encourage all young individuals to upskill themselves in this lockdown period and constantly keep up with the recent trends and novel practices of the industry and come up with innovative solutions to your problems to stay relevant in modern times.
Nilanjan Dasgupta
Sr. Counsellor & Trainer
Imperial Overseas Education Consultants
