WRITTEN BY ARTUR MEYSTER, CTO OFCAREER KARMA
Over the last few months, the COVID-19 pandemic has altered how work is performed. Technology has been leaned on heavily during this time for remote work and this reliance has led to many jobs being cut from company payrolls. Overall, this has resulted in a smaller workforce and has had detrimental effects on multiple industries.
Millions have lost their jobs, but certain industries have shown strong signs of surviving these disruptions. Learning what these industries are can help you understand which fields may be beneficial to go into.
REAL ESTATE MARKET
While the real estate market has had problems in the past, it has done quite well amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. Housing is traditionally a solid industry that is only affected by deep disruptions of the stock market. Fascinatingly enough, the stock market disruptions that resulted from COVID-19 have seemingly not impacted the real estate market as much as one may expect.
Discussions between landlords and tenants, as well as the agreements they have come to, have had new and interesting effects on the overall market. During this pandemic, as covered by CNN,Bank of Americatook steps to protect its customers by allowing mortgages to be deferred for certain periods.
As a whole, this field is set to remain strong due to the amount of attention and regulatory action it has been given following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Keeping this in mind, entering the real estate market for either job or home-buying purposes is not a bad idea for the current moment. Unlike other fields, real estate seems to be an industry that is surviving in stride.
JOBS IN TECH
Tech-based jobs are notorious for being hardy jobs that last long into the future. During this pandemic, however, this is becoming even more clear. Remote work has been enabled due to technology, for the most part, and jobs in tech are being used to power the future of work. Entering the tech industry now or partnering with tech companies is a great way to stay involved with a resilient field amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.
Various fields within the tech industry are set to survive even more than some others. For perspective, any job that involves coding or programming is set to be a dynamic part of the future of work. Ironically enough, coding as a strict job is seeing a decline, but careers that use coding are actually on the rise.
In fact, new forms of educational institutions, such ascoding bootcamps, are emerging in order to train people of all ages on how to develop this skill. Not only this, but the last few months have seen bootcamps emerge for tech fields that even used to require a masters degree to enter, such as data science. With that in mind, the emergence of theseonline degreeprograms just goes to show how important and resilient the tech field is as a whole.
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
As a specific field, artificial intelligence is one of the fields that will easily survive this pandemic. In fact, AI is one of the biggest reasons that workers are currently being disrupted and removed from their careers. Automation via these advanced systems is taking over every industry of work. Entire trade schools, such asGeneral Assembly, have emerged to teach students anything and everything there is to know about the skills needed to launch a career in this field.
Of course, with this in mind, not every job will be taken away by artificial intelligence. Creative destruction is sure to create new jobs that will replace the older ones, although these will surely be heavily based in tech and require tech skills.
CONCLUSION
Overall, there are a number of fields that are set to come out on the other side of this pandemic stronger than ever. These are the fields that are the most adaptable, historically speaking, and wont be destroyed by remote work or automation.
Theres a massive fear that jobs wont be returning after the COVID-19 pandemic settles, but theres no substance to this fear. The jobs that will re-emerge at the end of this pandemic will be a result of creative destruction, a process that naturally creates new and unique jobs. Getting into any of the above-listed fields can set you up to survive the coming disruptions.
Artur Meyster is the CTO ofCareer Karma(YC W19), an online marketplace that matches career switchers with coding bootcamps. He is also the host of the Breaking Into Startups podcast, which features people with non-traditional backgrounds who broke into tech.
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