When the COVID-19 hit the world, the state of the world
started to change drastically. Among these changes was the dire situation of
the world economy. The US economy was also hit hard, and this hit is being
directly compared to The Great Depression and The Great Recession alike.
In the last week of April 2020, the unemployment rate in the
US peaked at an all-time high, with 14.7% of US population filing for
unemployment. This percentage of unemployed residents was the highest since
1939. In some states of the US, one in every four people is out of work.
To add fuel to the fire, the lockdown has helped very little to maintain the economy. As the stores came to a closure, and many businesses were forced to close down, the economy suffered in the process. These closures were also the reason for the high unemployment rate. Many big companies have also filed for bankruptcy, with multiple stores of them were closed down and some even shutting down completely. Companies like Airbnb said that their 16 years of business was brought to its knees in 6 weeks.
However, amidst this collapse, the one thing that saved the
economy from collapsing further was the internet. The work from home tradition
helped the businesses to sustain themselves and conduct their business remotely.
Each employee is at home, carrying out their responsibilities and then some.
The online working tradition has been on the rise after the lockdown, which is
evident in the fact that in March 2020, the remote job listings grew by 769%.
Other than that, the communication between teams was made
popular by multiple software. Zoom, Google Suite, and Google Meet were the
companies' software for video conferencing and communications. History has
proven that an economic collapse gave rise to new technological inventions that
helped humanity in years to come. Let's hope that this collapse also gives rise
to new avenues for us.
Take a look at the following infographic for more details.
