Finding Resilience in the Face of Economic Uncertainties

Are we poised for a global recession? The trail of economic destruction that has been blitzed by a virus, which we can’t even see with our naked eye, has been a sight to behold.

Businesses have been shuttered, jobs have been lost, and suddenly the traditional mindset of getting a good university degree, finding a good job, taking a home loan and retiring with a home loan that has been all paid off appears to be a pipe dream all over again.

The worst thing is: we don’t know when this COVID-19 nightmare will end.

As such, we are faced with a whole load of uncertainties. Some people don’t even know if they will get to keep their jobs. From what I understand in the United States, the benefits that are provided by salaried jobs are extremely important factors. If one is uncertain about being able to retain their job, then what will happen to their benefits, especially that of health insurance?

We live in an era that is rich in technology. We have versatile smartphones that can do so many things with an Internet connection, including (but are not limited to):

• Booking travel, whether by car/ship/plane
• Communicating with people who are halfway around the world
• Learning new languages
• Watching entertainment videos
• Performing online banking transactions

The only problem is that most jobs aren’t suited for being conducted online via the Internet. One still has to go into their place of work to earn money, especially when their job scope deals with operating different types of physical equipment.

Let’s look at a cafe as an example. A cafe provides coffee products such as lattes and cappuccinos. A human barista has to be present in the cafe to operate the coffee machine and provide good coffee for their consumers.

Now that we are in a critical period of social distancing and staying home, the foot traffic to the cafe will drop significantly. As a result, the cafe owners will have to decide if they still want to keep the cafe open. If the cafe is closed, the jobs of the cafe staff will be in jeopardy.

Without the cafe running, it will not require the consumption of any coffee products, which will affect the coffee industry.

We can extrapolate that example to the travel industries. Less people will be travelling from point to point within cities, hence taxi and ride hailing app drivers will be hit hard by it. Passenger air travel has also declined significantly as countries close up their immigration borders, and neither will anyone be willing to set foot on a passenger cruise ship for a long while for fear of being stranded out at sea if the next big virus ever hits.

But what sectors find an increased demand for their services during this situation?

We see Amazon’s online shopping and delivery business model being so blasted and swamped with orders that it can afford to increase its workforce by 175000 new jobs.

We see a surge in demand in the pharmaceutical sector for drugs such as hydroxychloroquine, and even a billionaire such as Bill Gates is getting in on the medical research to develop cures for the COVID-19 coronavirus.

We see a surge in demand for material that can be read or watched on a screen in the privacy of our own home to maintain social distancing, such as physical books, ebooks, Youtube videos, Netflix series and (most probably even) pornographic films. In fact, videoconferencing tools such as Zoom are experiencing unprecedented economic gains during this pandemic.

The key to resilience, therefore, is to understand the trends and jump on it quickly enough, especially if we were to want to continue maintaining a steady stream of income during these uncertain times.

Every smartphone that can watch a Youtube video also has the ability to create a new Youtube video.

Every computer that has the ability to read an ebook also has the ability to write a new ebook.

But we have to realise that it is not the smartphone that is watching the Youtube video, or the computer that is reading the ebook.

It’s the person- it’s YOU.

If you can read an ebook or a Medium article, you would have the ability to write one.

If you can watch a Youtube video, you can create one too.

Any viewer of an Instagram image/story can create a new Instagram image/story.

It depends on your skillset, really.

Are you up to the challenge, especially if you are now so much freer at home to learn how to do such things? The challenge is to be able to do it professionally, in a way that can bring out the best reactions from others!

These ebooks and Youtube videos have one thing in common — they’re all online. It means that they can be accessed by anyone with an Internet connection and a computer. It also means that they can be accessed online many years down the road when you’ve long forgotten about it (assuming that the servers don’t fail). If one is paid a royalty for every ebook that they sell, does it matter whether a copy is sold today or in the next year?

The challenge for us would be to build up an online presence and an audience with relevant content that helps them to develop the different skillsets that they want to develop. That’s your resilience right there — in the face of economic uncertainty.

And that’s how we can better monetise our skills with online streams of income, without being too overly dependent on our jobs for economic stability!

Now, isn’t that more interesting than watching Youtube videos all day?