By Dr. Serene Yong Jing Yi
“Am I able to get a job after graduation?” – one of the most common questions raised by students. I am not surprised by this anxiety, even I myself have similar doubt. With this concern in mind, I recently read this article, and I believe it is very important for us to understand the current labour market and recognize the changes we need.
Globalization and technology advancement are among the few terms that are very popular in the business world, these forces have led to the increasing use of global business services as well as the emergence of Industry 4.0, robots, automation and artificial intelligence (AI). While everyone is pressured by these changes, we are facing another worrying event – Covid-19 pandemic, people all over the world are struggling with viruses and new ways of living. In the labour market, countries around the world report that the unemployment rate remains high, also evident for graduates who have difficulty finding jobs in difficult times. On the other hand, in response to Covid-19 crisis, companies have accelerated the adoption of technology in business development. All these changes are alarming to every one of us: it is time to upskill and reskill!
Businesses are recently hit by the pandemic and the devastating impact of Covid-19 on the workforce is also explained by the author. Most companies are in a dilemma: should we lay off employees to cut cost? Or should we retain the employees? However, if we keep the employees, it will be a huge expense considering the business has been severely hit by the pandemic. I am sure you are also puzzled about this, and I believe this doubt will be cleared after reading this article.
In this article, the author emphasizes the need to shift to a distributed workforce model and the need to upskill and reskill. If any of you have doubts about the effectiveness and approaches used, do not worry, this article also provides some insights on the benefits of the upskilling and reskilling programs and their implementation methods. Although this is a short article and not comprehensive, it serves as a good read to increase our awareness of labour market changes.
References
Elfond, G. (2020). Why employee upskilling and reskilling is so important right now. https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/12/21/why-employee-upskilling-and-reskilling-is-so-important-right-now/?sh=300ae73f3302.