by Madeeha Khan
2020 has been the most challenging year so far. It has changed the world’s scenario in just a matter of 6 months. Beginning from the global pandemic that has made a large of people, jobless. This has affected every aspect of society, especially the economy. The economy of July 2020 can’t be the same as January 2020. To solve this, we need to train more people on a digital level, where the unemployed sector can find their means to earn a living.
Microsoft and LinkedIn have decided to come together to start a venture of training 25 million unemployed workers, worldwide. It is a global skills initiative that will train workers for digital skills. Microsoft will use LinkedIn data to identify in-demand jobs and skills needed to fill them, give free access to learning paths and help people develop the skills these positions require and charge low for certification and free job-seeking tools to help people develop these skills and pursue new jobs. It’ll provide free access to the content in LinkedIn Learning, Microsoft Learn, the GitHub Learning Lab and hence join them with Microsoft Certifications and LinkedIn job-seeking tools. Microsoft is backing up this initiative with $20 million in cash grants to help non-profit organization worldwide and assist the people who need it the most.
Microsoft in their blog post said, “Our vision for skills extends beyond these immediate steps for job seekers.” It is very important to reskill the skills one already has and hence their vision is to make a connected “system of learning” that encourages people to pursue lifelong learning. Microsoft is also launching a new app for learning that helps employees upskill new and existing knowledge. It’ll bring together the best class content from LinkedIn Learning, Microsoft Learn and third party training providers and the company’s learning content where employees can easily have access to it.
Microsoft has also pledged that they will help the governments around the world with stronger data analytics so that they can assess the local economic needs, better. Advocating their voice for the innovations in the public policy that will advance the skills that a person needs to change the economy.
According to Microsoft calculations, global unemployment may reach a quarter billion people this year. The US unemployment rate was 13.3% in may that was the highest level since 1940. As a result of COVID-19, the regular restaurants, shops and even companies are shut, the people have lost their jobs and the companies have become bank corrupt. Brad Smith the president of Microsoft said, “COVID-19 has sent so many people home if they had the good fortune to work and work from home.” He also added that one might also need a lot of digital skills to get back to the workplace
However, the Indian GDP was already as low as 4.7% as per Oct-Dec 2019 and everyone had planned to gear up and try to rise it in 2020 but the Coronavirus outbreak turned the tables. India has lost more jobs than the US during this pandemic. In the first 2 weeks, 12 crore Indians lost their job. The government had announced income and food supplies for the vulnerable people as a part of an Rs. 1.70 lakh crore fiscal stimulus to the economic, financial and humanitarian crisis. Several NGOs gave the necessities to the underprivileged. Many celebrities not only contributed to relief funds but also helped the people on an individual level by providing them food or sending them home.
Although the privileged sector helped a lot to the underprivileged, the unemployment rate remains the same. The government had started a PM relief fund on 27 March 2020 for the novel Coronavirus Pandemic that still hasn’t given an outcome yet. The government’s ‘Atal Beema Vyakti Kalyan Yojana’ that provides insurances to the unemployed workers who have registered to the Employee’s State Insurance (ESI) scheme was supposed to cover such workers during the pandemic. The scheme provides compensation in the form of cash to the workers who lose their job and became unemployed for up to 3 months, but there hasn’t been any update by the government in this matter either.
It is now important for the government to start implementing schemes that will help in reducing unemployment. People are facing a lot of stress and anxiety as a result of this unemployment and therefore, the government needs to take more initiatives to help them gain paid jobs and support them in this fight against the pandemic.
Image Credits:- Venture Beat
