How Covid 19 pandemic changed students’ career plans
A second wave of the SARS Cov-2 pandemic that ravaged the world arose months after the first wave. The second wave exposed the employment sector’s frail fault lines in a more pronounced way. Nobody foresaw this, and definitely not the students whose lives are drastically altered following this global crisis. India, being a developing country with the world’s second-largest population, is reeling under the full impact of COVID-19. Since the pandemic, one of the challenges the country has faced is maintaining the employment rate across different groups.
2020 was dubbed the worst-ever year for the Indian job market, with about 10.9 million jobs lost across sectors. Since the pandemic, many aspects of our public and private life have changed dramatically. Following a global economic recession in 2019, the Covid19 pandemic has thrown the world economy into chaos, paving the way for the depletion of financial market operations and a shift in consumer behaviour. Stay-at-home rules and travel restrictions have resulted in a workforce reduction across all economic sectors, resulting in job losses across socioeconomic groups. The impacts of these are evident on the lives of students who are finding it difficult to translate their dreams into reality. Confined within the closed quarters of their homes, students are struggling to choose a definite career point owing to mobility issues, inaccessibility to resources and difficulty in seeking career counselling. With the restrictions put in one’s movements, students with career aspirations are scrambling for aid.
Young people are now going to experience serious and long-term effects from the pandemic unless appropriate action is taken. Many sectors around the world have been struck hard by the coronavirus outbreak. Some businesses noticed an increase in revenues, while others suffered a significant drop. Many non-essential enterprises had to close their doors. How will this impact graduates? What about the hiring process? Will you be able to work from home? What difficulties are currently affecting various industries, and what does the future hold for your profession? These are tangible questions which arrests their attention from time to time.
To make matters worse there is also the issue with digital divide. The internet is an essential aspect of our lives, but the majority of people do not have access to it. Since the beginning of the pandemic, the population has become increasingly reliant on the internet. The systematic exclusion of one segment of the population from the virtual environment has deterred their personal and professional growth. The digital gap is a serious problem and must be addressed as such, taking into account the intricacies of socio-economic gaps in groups. When traditional teaching methods are replaced with online classes, the issue remains: aren’t we restricting some students from achieving the same goals realised by students with access to the internet.
According to a survey report published in 2020 by International Labour Organization despite schools and training institutions’ best efforts to offer continuity through online delivery, 66% of young people said they had learned less since the pandemic began, 51% think their education will be delayed, and 9% believed their education will suffer and possibly fail. The pandemic is also imposing a high pressure situation on young workers, causing many to lose their jobs and jeopardise their employment prospects. Younger employees aged 18–24, as well as those in clerical support, services, sales, and crafts and associated occupations, accounted for one out of every six young individuals (17%) who were employed prior to the pandemic. Hours of work among employed youth decreased by over a third (or two hours per day on average), and two out of every five young people (42%) reported a decrease in income. Young people in low-income nations are the most vulnerable to work-hour cutbacks and the resulting income reduction. The key predictor of how the crisis has affected young women and men in work differently was discovered to be employment, with young women reporting higher productivity losses than young men.
Another study published by the Institute of Student Employees in 2021 reveals that more over a quarter of the 6,500 students and graduates surveyed have changed their career goals as a result of the virus, and 37% are still undecided about what they will do. Some respondents indicated they were considering internships as a way to start earning money instead of studying. In the previous 12 months, three quarters of respondents claimed they had looked for an apprenticeship or training programme. Many people changed their plans because they wanted to get out of industries which were heavily affected, such as tourism and hospitality, during the pandemic.
As illustrated above the aviation, hospitality, and travel industries were the hardest damaged by the lockdown. Indians were obliged to stay at home, and these industries either laid them off or expected them to move on without any pay. Many young individuals are naturally susceptible due to difficult career prospects and students off university. It’s critical that we discover new ways to provide career guidance and assistance to young people, especially those from under-represented communities who are most exposed to disadvantage. We must recognize that, while students and graduates have demonstrated great endurance and adaptation over the last year, the young have been adversely impacted by the pandemic in terms of job and career opportunities, and they deserve the best assistance we can provide.
Online appears to be the way of the future. For many companies, new employees will begin working remotely rather than in person, at least until the lockdown measures are eased. Changes take place continually in all spheres of the economy. Social distancing protocol measures and travel bans have ushered in roadblocks in the organic growth of students who are required to navigate physical spaces such as in the medical field. In such adverse scenarios, the onus also falls on the greater public to amplify the voices and actions of youth who are under career pressures. It is only by working together with and for youth that we can eliminate the risks posed by the Covid 19 outbreak.
