COVID 19 Pandemic and The Future of World Economy. Where is It Going… How will you Feature in It? (originally published April 3rd, 2020).

In January 1, citizens and countries of the world woke up to the bright lights of a brand new year and decade, singing ‘Happy New Year songs’ and, as usual, leaders across board firming up powerful plans for not just the new year 2020, but for what has been adjudged a “most critical decade” for actualizing the different aspirations of our world economies and governments for the century. Unbeknownst to all of us that the year 2020 was to usher in the world’s most devastating epidemic in over a 100 years. This corona virus pandemic, an outbreak that emerged in Wuhan, China, in late December 2019, has in a short period of time unleashed very devastating health and economic blows on our global economy and society that not even our Silent Generation forebears still with us today have seen in their lifetime.

Only the 1918 Spanish Flu that infected about 500 million people across the world and claimed from 17 million to 50 million lives (according to some historic reports) and the more devastating Eurasian Black Plague of the 14th century, could seem to have posed more devastating health and socioeconomic consequences on our world than what we have experienced in just merely three months of this virus outbreak. With sweeping cancellations of major sporting events across almost every sport around the world, virtually every other industry has been hit, responding with a gale of postponements or outright cancellations of earlier scheduled events, with billions of dollars’ worth of financial consequences and losses to investors, business owners and their various stakeholders.

Global stocks of several industries are now plummeting and oil prices particularly have been experiencing a free fall, currently hitting under $24 for Brent crude, its lowest in over 17 years, far deeper than in the 2008 global financial crisis. Different national governments are now responding with different economic stimulus packages to bailout some affected businesses including direct cash transfers to boost the spending power of its citizens who have been hit by the sudden unemployment and loss of commerce that has been created by the pandemic. Just last week, the IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva, announced that the global economy has entered a recession, with global GDP growth now being predicted at about 1.5%, 50% less than the earlier 2019 projections.

With under 50,000 global fatality cases as at current count today, the COVID-19 pandemic has infected just under a million people globally. Our hope is that the different safety guidelines by different national governments, foremost being social distancing and the self-isolation rule for infected people and those who have had such close contacts, would help to reduce the pace and spread of this virus and bring a quick end to the crisis. However, like in almost every other pandemic and crisis situation, fear has been a major danger to global market emotions, including individual psychological health and general productivity. While these fears are tangible, with the obvious consequences glaring us in the face should we elect to flout government social distancing and sit-at-home rules and decide to begin conducting our business and social activities as usual, it is equally important to not allow these fears to cripple our general well-being especially as individual citizens. We should rather use these moments to project into the future and see the world — our lives as individuals, organizations and national economies — post this crisis.

Without a doubt, the global economy, after this crisis, will never be the same again. We, as individuals, organizations and national governments will very certainly not go back to living and working the way we did pre- this COVID-19 pandemic. With disruptions in global supply chains, with person-to-person operations even in the healthcare industry and other businesses now being gradually shifted, business executives and their strategy think tanks across industries are currently accelerating the rethinking of their business and operational models. If business leaders and decision makers across the world ever needed any major impetus to begin preparing their businesses and operational bases to transit to the next technological/industrial frontier of our human economic system, a la the Fourth Industrial revolution, then this corona virus pandemic has provided more than enough of that jolt in their thinking. It bears repeating that our world economies will never be the same again. While I don’t insinuate that there is going to be an outright 100% or even 60% change in our lives — i.e. instant changes in the dynamics of our business operations and work experience, assuming the virus were to end tomorrow — what I mean is that this crisis has tipped the scales and finally compelled our focus towards the future of work, of business operations, and the critical skills that are needed in the present or future to respond to the ever changing markets and consumer situations as we have seen today.

So what does this whole conversation mean to you; how does this concern you, your personal or business life, and the future of work/economic viability for you and your family in the coming months and years? This question is actually the main thrust of this article; how you and I can prepare ourselves in terms of our individual and organizational capabilities and skill levels in order not to be found wanting in the emerging economic and labour market changes of the future. This article is intended to prime us, as individuals, organizations and human capital professionals, to take proactive steps in preparing ourselves and upgrading our capacity to benefit from these impending changes rather than being unwittingly swept by the massive potential skill gaps and socioeconomic inequalities that may arise at the other side of these changes.

Since January 2016, the World Economic Forum (WEF) has been publishing on a biannual basis its Future of Jobs report, highlighting important changes in the various skills across several industries that will be needed to function in the economic landscape of the future. The reports highlights radical changes to be expected in global skills requirement between 2016 to 2030, and beyond. The Fourth Industrial Revolution, the use of intelligent machines and algorithms to replace most of the tasks and key business functions performed by humans, is literally here with us. Innovative technologies and industrial applications solutions such as artificial intelligence (AI), automation and controls, machine learning, internet-of-things, cloud computing, big data analytics, block chain, robotics, are slowly but steadily going to displace a great percentage of the way we work and run business across almost every industry and sector of our economies.

In the last report released by WEF for 2018/2019, a number of key skills where highlighted to be important for the coming economy, where intelligent machines and smart technologies will replace human effort, but at the same time creating several other jobs and specific tasks that will require different set of skills to operate. The report further highlighted some skills of today’s workplace that will be essentially redundant or less relevant for the coming economy; with an average of 42% changes between the skills or tasks performed by humans today that will be replaced or augmented by machines within the period 2020–2022. If the predictions of WEF in these supposed skills changes in the future have not been taken seriously by you and me, then this crisis should remove all impediments to our thinking. In this article, therefore, I seek to share my perspectives on various ways you can prepare and begin upgrading yourself — especially with this seeming lull in economic activities and global lockdowns in movements — to position yourself and your employment capacity to make the most of the coming economy.

According to WEF, two categories of competencies or skill sets will be most viable for the emerging economy, with several hard and technical skills of our present or past years’ workplace being forced into subordination or outright irrelevance. The firsts are technological skills like automation and systems integration, coding, big data analytics, cloud computing, app development, e-commerce, digital and social media marketing, video editing, virtual communications, etc. These skills will be highly sought-after to corroborate the wide reforms in operations that will be brought about by technology systems and machines. On the second category, the report points to ‘human skills’ that will be equally relevant or sought-after in the coming economy as machines take over human jobs and less and less direct human face-time is needed to carry out business activities across industries. People and consumers across markets will have more free time to “give” or “patronize” other “services” in entertainment, sports, the arts, media, social causes and other direct human productive enterprises. These skills include creativity, critical thinking, analytical thinking, complex problem solving, ideation, initiative, persuasion, leadership, social influence, service orientation, emotional intelligence, collaboration, and the like. Together these skills will be needed to meet the ever changing demands and aspirational needs of consumers across markets/industrial clusters.

So what should you do? I suggest you first of all get grounded and strengthen your capacity in the 4 emotional intelligence competence domains (or ‘success competencies’ as some call it) to give yourself the perfect orientation and standing to ‘creatively’ navigate the coming job market with its rapid changes and demand dynamics. Add to that spiritual intelligence competencies like insight, inspiration, foresight and wisdom, and you have a complete mix of viable human qualities and capacities that should position you to continually navigate the coming complex labour market landscape.

By the 4 domains of emotional intelligence competencies, I mean developing your strength of character and capacity in self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and relationship management. Together these ‘inner/interpersonal competencies’ will arouse your creative instinct and service disposition and attitude. They would unleash those important ‘’human skills’’ within you (creativity, ideation, initiative, persuasion, leadership, service and social influence, etc), and then you can come up with as many ‘enterprise solutions’ or ‘service concepts’ that will fit with the dynamic market opportunities this emerging economic landscape will present.

Unfortunately, this set of skills cannot be picked up with just a YouTube video or a single training seminar. While these channels can connect you with the resources of talented life coaches and human development experts that can help you through the process, these “skills” are developed and strengthened by deep and continuous personal introspection and thoughtfulness through continuous inspirational reading, study, mediation and practice of key principles of growth and development. The trick, as has also been recommended by WEF in these successive reports and corroborated by a number of professional studies, is to commit to a future of life-long learning and improvement in your emotional, intellectual and professional capacities and awareness. With such commitment, you would always find correlating work opportunities in the emerging economy to advance your career, personal and social goals.

And on the other hand, as necessary in line with the demands of your purpose, work and career goals and objectives, complement these inner competencies with the latest technological or fourth industrial revolution skills that this new economy require. Although highly specialized, these skills present some of the most viable and beneficial career opportunities in the present economic system across multiple industries. With 42% of today’s tasks going to be performed by intelligent technologies and machines by 2022, these skills will be in high demand in the coming economy. Skills like automation and systems integration, data science, systems analysis, coding, software/app development, social media marketing, digital content creation, video editing and virtual communication will be the coin of the job market realm.

While these skills would naturally require high-level specialized training and development to master, depending on your background in technology, computer science or statistics and the like and your personal income level to fund this personal development voyage, there are some creative ways you can start your journey toward acquiring and mastering these skills. With just a google search of courses that transfer these skills, you can get some free tutorials that can give you the basic background and understanding for starts. There are even free videos on YouTube that you can spend all night watching and practicing to develop and strengthen your capacity in this skill sets.

After sometime, you can even begin to take up a few freelancing jobs, charging small amounts first and use such projects to gain experience and strengthen your skill level (there are several of such freelancing sites out there with just a google search). With some income, you can also further your studies on online training websites like Udemy, Coursera, etc, paying just a few dollars and using the platform to deepen your capacity and knowledge. After a while, you can quickly begin to charge substantially high fees in your freelancing work or you may land yourself a more lucrative and stable employment in a big firm sooner than later.

That technology is rapidly taking over many aspects of every industry of our economy and work-life is a foregone conclusion. From engineering to architecture, sales and retain, medicine, law, accounting and everything, the way we work, purchase and do business has changed for the better, and we either grow with it (both as individuals and as a society) or be short-changed by it. If anything, this COVID-19 pandemic has put the final nail on the cotton of our old enterprise systems and our indolent attitude toward development and change especially as a nation. In this article I have tried to share my perspective how you can begin to look at the future and strategically position yourself to be relevant and viable for the coming world of work and future economic progress. I hope we, both as individuals and governments in Nigeria particularly, will take advantage of these moments and do the necessary re-adjustment and positioning for the coming future.

Austine Edim is strategy head and lead partner at APNET Consult Limited