UK (Commonwealth Union) – The pandemic forced many enterprises across the world to shift many of their services towards digital platforms. Areas like customer services and certain administrative workers generally adapted well to the digital transformation. However, all sectors did not embrace this change due to concerns such as low productivity and sectors which deal in a physical items or laboratory services were keen to move back to normal from the digital platforms. Nevertheless, they did retain some digital features such as customer service. Many nations and organizations have also expressed reservations over privacy and digital security on using global digital platforms.
A new study conducted by the Oxford Internet Institute (Oii) of the University of Oxford reveals that digital platforms do not necessarily bridge the digital divide between urban and rural.
COVID-19 brought about a quick acceleration of workplace information and communication technologies, together with the possibility of remote work, bringing about more even distribution across country, city and the world. The new study indicates remote work conducted via online working platforms reflects the geographical and skills-based polarization of labor markets, rather than distributing work more evenly.
Oii’s Dr Fabian Brasemann, lead author of the study, noted that location is no longer an obstacle to work remotely. He further explained that remote work is polarized across the world between nations as well as urban and rural areas within them and between job types. For this reason, being located in a cosmopolitan location in a developed nation gave an individual a much higher chance of working via digital platforms
“We believe remote work can become an instrument of economic empowerment and growth. But, for this to happen, remote work needs to be embedded in broader economic and labour market development schemes, supporting disadvantaged regions to invest in local skill development and infrastructure. Only in regions that flourish locally, remote workers can succeed globally,” said Dr Braesemann.
