The growth of legislation to guarantee data protection and privacy for citizens is a worldwide phenomenon. At the same time, there is an increasing need for technological solutions to help law enforcement officers maintain border security. WCC has shown a long commitment to providing software solutions that foster a safer world while also protecting citizens’ privacy. In the first part of a two-part blog, we discuss the origins and development of privacy legislation and how our privacy must be respected when traveling, even during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Labor market shortages have rocked countries around the world. Across a broad swathe of industries, a perfect storm of pandemic-related lockdowns, aging populations, and more restrictive immigration policies have led to numerous businesses struggling to fill positions. Worldwide, unemployment remains high, but so too does the number of job vacancies. Moreover, there are worrying signs on the horizon, with an inevitable impact on GDPs across the Globe. So what is causing these labor shortages, and what can Public Employment Services and staffing agencies do to mitigate these extraordinary economic challenges?

New skills are coming to the forefront as companies rethink their operations and how they deliver products and services. For a long time, skills shared equal footing with experience and cultural fit when assessing a candidate’s suitability for a specific role. However, a new breed of professional is emerging – someone who possesses the right combination of hard and soft skills. These professionals will stand tall in the recruitment market, with increasingly less emphasis on where they gained their experience.

Sometimes unpredictable events provide the final push towards change that is long overdue. For example, for many years, it has been evident that access to employment opportunities will improve if flexible and hybrid working becomes a regular, widespread practice. During the pandemic, businesses and governments were able to experience the impact of hybrid working on re-balancing the workforce, and the verdict was overwhelmingly positive.

There’s no question that remote and hybrid working has benefited our health, finances and leisure time, even though we face new challenges creating a boundary between work and family time as they start to occupy the same physical space. Any significant upheaval in the way we work will also eventually reveal specific challenges for different groups of workers, and we need to get ahead of them.

If the gig economy was booming before the Covid-19 pandemic hit, demand has skyrocketed since early 2020. Also known as the ‘platform economy’, it proved to be a lifeline during lockdown imposed restrictions and for those in self-isolation. In 2021, the global gig economy is estimated to reach a worth of $347bn. This estimate represents a greater than 50% increase from a market value of $204bn in 2018. In their recent study, Bodmin predicted a continuous upward trajectory that will reach $455bn by 2023.

Every year, travel trends change, but 2021 is shaping up to be one of the most critical years in tourism history. We expect travel to look a little different than it did pre-pandemic as the world gradually recovers from COVID-19 and borders begin to open. Our blog describes some of the technological trends that will influence the future of air travel.