ICT as a tool for job creation
Friday 7 February, 2020 – 12:08
Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has become a major tool for gaining competitive advantage in the corporate world and as such has been integrated into the operations of most high performing organizations in every economy. The world is increasingly becoming technology-driven, and ICTs remain a key driver of any economy, as it has the potential to address the rising unemployment trend in the country.
The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) has published the State of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) report that represents the development and performance of the sector focusing on telecommunications, broadcasting and postal services. While the ICT sector continues to demonstrate dynamic growth, particularly as driven by the mobile services sector, the growth has not necessarily met ICASA’s vision of affordable access to the wide range of communication services. Though access to mobile services continues to grow, broadband access (both fixed and mobile) remains at unsatisfactory levels due to perceived high cost of communication services, in particular, data services. In that regard, ICASA has embarked on several interventions aimed at addressing this challenge, these are the mobile services market review process and the regulation of data expiry and transfer rules.
A recent policy note released by the World Bank says that information and communication technologies (ICTs) are transforming the world of work, creating new job opportunities and making labour markets more innovative, inclusive, and global.
The World Bank’s chief innovation officer for global ICT development, Chris Vein said “ICTs are influencing employment both as an industry that creates jobs and as a tool that empowers workers to access new forms of work, in new and more flexible ways.”
According to Vein, “the emerging ICT-enabled employment opportunities matter because countries around the world are looking to create more good jobs, which have positive economic and social implications for workers and for society.”
As scary as it may be for us to welcome the changes ICT comes with, it still does create great opportunies and undertsanding of the changing world. With enough trainging and resources, ICT prevails great things in the civil society.