Job opportunities prepared by the IT sector in the post-Covid period
Santosh Chandrasekhara Kurup
The world is witnessing human society adopting new ways to bring life back to normal even as the world faces the Covid-19 pandemic. Digital technology has become one of the main helpers for many to survive and sustain their livelihood even though their daily lives are not normal.
The industrial world was turned upside down by the Covid crisis. We have seen a significant slowdown in the growth of many industries, including tourism, hospitality, oil and gas, luxury goods, automobiles and real estate. Our labor market is in crisis as industrial growth slows. Many countries around the world have reported the highest unemployment rate in the last few decades. In India, the Covid crisis has raised the unemployment rate to 24 percent. Our little Kerala relies heavily on the Middle East economy for job opportunities. About 5 lakh Keralites are employed in this sector. But due to the current crisis, about 3 lakh people have to return to Kerala.
This return of expatriates has posed a huge economic and employment challenge in our state. Experts say volatility in the Middle East labor market is likely to continue. It is in this context that job seekers and job seekers need to be clearly aware of job opportunities in the post-Covid world. If you ask me why the future is so important, I have to say that it is for new technologies. The IT sector has played a vital role in tackling the current crisis. Studies have shown that Covid’s advances in IT technology include data science, robotic process automation, virtual reality, and digital marketing.
As the world travels through the coronavirus era, we have seen that data analytics, the latest technology in the field of IT, has been used extensively around the world. Data Analytics is a technology that has been very useful to the Department of Health in estimating the spread of the disease among the people at various levels and in creating predictive models. Similarly, audio-visual technology is another benefit utilized by the healthcare sector. The health sector relied on audio-visual technology for remote medical consultation without direct contact with patients.
As the need for such innovative technology increases, so does the potential for employment in this sector. But the challenge now facing the industry is the lack of availability of talent in such areas. We need to take advantage of this lack. As the demand for such specialists in the country and abroad increases in the post-Covid period, the acquisition of skills in this field will provide an opportunity to increase the demand in the labor market.
If you look at the statistics of the Covid era, you can see that the use of digital services such as e-commerce, teaching, entertainment and e-governance has increased. Data usage increased by 47% and Internet usage by 55% during the Covid-19 period. Such an increase in internet consumption has also increased the potential of digital marketing.
The increasing use of digital by people, including the general public, poses new challenges to governments, institutions and individuals in the cyber world. Therefore, cyber security investments have increased during this period and the sector has become more important. Business and cyber security have become as important as any other field during the Covid era. With all businesses moving to the Internet, the importance of cyber security needs to be enhanced. So cyber security courses are also in high demand in the future. Although the pandemic period has closed many avenues, the IT sector is able to open up other innovative avenues. Extended reality is another area that offers many job opportunities in the future.
With the rise of digital services, companies are shifting to online services and utilizing innovative technologies to give customers a real-life customer experience. It uses augmented and excited reality techniques. With the help of such technologies, businesses are able to deliver the best customer service to the people without losing the beauty of the real customer experience. Technologists take customers to a new level of customer experience through advanced technology. Such technologies offer great opportunities not only in the field of gaming but also in other business ventures through the internet. Hence the expertise in this field.
The writer is CEO, ICT Academy of Kerala
