As we move forward and seemingly the COVID-19 pandemic is behind us, people had started to adapt to the new routine. But this new routine was disrupted by the current world situation, and is now constantly accompanied by new data, new perceptions, new frameworks, and overall new challenges. All people are affected more or less, but here we will try to focus mostly on the younger ones. A remark though which should be noted is that, since the COVID-19 pandemic’s starting point was almost 4 years ago now, we consider that the surge of abrupt changes that affected humanity has already had its peak, therefore from now what we are looking at are more mitigated ramifications in regards to this matter.
Upcoming changes in our daily life, taking into account the current global conditions (post-pandemic, wars) could possibly include:
- reluctance on behalf of employers to maintain in their current standards their business in fear of failure, leading therefore to less available job positions,
- on the other hand, perhaps small unknown touristic areas get more popular due to people trying to find cheap and not crowded holiday destinations,
- combined with the previous point, the workforce and mostly young people will need to relocate in order to get into the job market.
Nonetheless, and in tandem with the progress of everyday life, some possible challenges that are yet to come in 2024 are:
- lingering distrust of youth to search for a job, especially in the tourism industry, due to the deep disruptions and ups and downs caused by the pandemic in the past
- businesses still keeping their staff to the minimum, in an effort to compensate for their losses the previous years
- ”fear” of the employers to provide more job positions, since the pandemic has been followed by the war in Ukraine and now in Israel, maintaining insecurity in all aspects.
What could be done? From the side of a politician and having examined thoroughly the issue, the proposed measures would entail:
- giving local businesses economic/ tax related incentives to hire more people,
- funding training centers for providing seminars, especially on digital skills and in tourism related areas in foreign languages as well, learning upskilling/ reskilling and especially on digital skills
- bringing together local businesses with local authorities in order to find the gaps between new job openings with the help of the public sector (for example, minimizing the bureaucracy).
Overall, 2024 is going to be another year with great challenges in regards to employment and the youth. The pandemic, although not completely behind us in terms of effects, so far seems that it has also created the appropriate ground for the emergence of new ways of working and carrying out business that can accommodate both job seekers and prospective employers.
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