Books

Business and Job Opportunities Now and After COVID-19 Pandemic (Part 2)

Published

5 years ago

August 13, 2020

Read part 1 here

As I was writing my most recent book, “Race for the Net,” over the last 30 months, I did not envision an economic Pandemic, but a recession (that we did get).

My focus was on the changes in the labor market due to a shifting economy based on mechanization and robotics. The noted firm McKinsey Consulting states in their recent report that over the next five years, more than 345 million persons around the world will be changing their current jobs (pre-pandemic).

Many of these jobs are in the service sector, in which a preponderance of African Americans generate their income. The technological shift in industries at all levels will result in a reduction of jobs in the following sectors: fast food, public transportation, retailing, manufacturing at level, back-office processing, and education, to name a few.

Public and private sector entities would be shifting from a human-dependent economy to mechanization and robotics. What is driving these changes is a focus on cost-cutting, labor shortages, and a desire for increased productivity. Many businesses were already facing a labor shortage due to workers not being willing to accept lower wages.

I suggested in my book that the African American community should now focus on accessing training and education programs in the growth areas of digital technology, coding, software development, health science, and cybersecurity.

The COVID-19 virus disaster has substantially reduced the size of our economy and created enormous pools of unemployed individuals in the service industries.

This technology transition will take a minimum of five years, beginning within two years under the current economic conditions. This shift to a robust digital economy is at our doorstep today.

Major business entities today are restructuring their human resource strategy with a focus on less human involvement due to health and insurance issues. These companies realize that mechanization and robotics have to be a primary focus if they are to survive in the post-pandemic era. With this in mind, the African American community must start considering alternative areas of employment and entrepreneurial opportunities not dependent on a service economy today.

Excerpted below are a few business areas covered in my book. For a complete description of the business and job opportunities, please read my book. Most of these options are entrepreneurial endeavors.

• Internet Commerce. This will continue to be a growth area. The potential market exceeds 4.2 billion potential customers and growing. People are becoming millionaires every day, leveraging Internet technology.

• Health Care Service. This industry is expected to grow by $4.6 trillion, with the increasing need for service providers and monitoring specialists to track data from home or remote locations.

• Disaster Support Services. A vast potential of job and business opportunities with the increased numbers of floods, fires, and hurricanes every year.

• Broadband transmission services and development. Billions of dollars are authorized to solve the Digital Divide and Broadband Transmission issues

• Small Business Innovative Research program (SBIR), a federal government program that funds inventions and ideas in various areas through the use of federal grants.

Finally, I am a big supporter of Science Technology Engineering and Math programs (STEM) in our communities for young people. I have personally mentored two young men who have successfully become software and app developers with little prior experience.

In less than three years, they secured management positions with software and cybersecurity companies. Each has garnered a salary of more than six figures. It required hard work and determination of these young men to achieve the first step in their goal of eventually having their own business.

You have the opportunity to change your life even through a pandemic. Do not waste this time to learn something that can help you after this disaster is over.

Albert E. White is the author of “Race for the Net.” The book can be ordered at www.raceforthenet.com

By Albert E. White

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Oakland Post: Week of May 21 – 27, 2025

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of May 21 – 27, 2025

Published

2 days ago

May 25, 2025

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BOOK REVIEW: The Afterlife of Malcolm X

Betty Shabazz didn’t like to go to her husband’s speeches, but on that February night in 1965, he asked her to come with their daughters to the Audubon Ballroom in New York. Did Malcolm X sense that something bad would happen on that night? Surely. He was fully aware of the possibility, knowing that he’d been “a marked man” for months because of his very public break with the Nation of Islam.

Published

1 week ago

May 18, 2025

Oakland Post

Book Cover of the Afterlife of Malcolm X. Courtesy of Simon & Schuster.

By Terri Schlichenmeyer

Author: by Mark Whitaker, c.2025, Simon & Schuster, $30.99, 448 pages

Who will remember you in fifty years’ time?

A handful of friends – at least those who are still around – might recall you. Your offspring, grandkids, and greats, maybe people who stumble upon your tombstone. Think about it: who will remember you in 2075? And then read “The Afterlife of Malcolm X” by Mark Whitaker and learn about a legacy that still resonates a half-century later.

As the news of his murder spread around New York and around the world, his followers and admirers reacted in many ways. His friend, journalist Peter Goldman, was “hardly shocked” because he also knew that Malcolm’s life was in danger, but the arrest of three men accused of the crime didn’t add up. It ultimately became Goldman’s “obsession.”

Malcolm’s co-writer for The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Alex Haley, quietly finished the book he started with Malcolm, and a small upstart publishing house snatched it up. A diverse group of magazines got in line to run articles about Malcolm X’s life, finally sensing that White America “’needed his voice even more than Blacks did.’”

But though Malcolm X was gone, he continued to leave an impact.

He didn’t live long enough to see the official founding of the Black Panther Party, but he was influential on its beginning. He never knew of the first Kwanzaa, or the triumphs of a convert named Muhammad Ali.

Malcolm left his mark on music. He influenced at least three major athletes.

He was a “touchstone” for a president …

While it’s true that “The Afterlife of Malcolm X” is an eye-opening book, one that works as a great companion to the autobiography, it’s also a fact that it’s somewhat scattered. Is it a look at Malcolm’s life, his legacy, or is it a “murder mystery”?

Turns out, it’s all three, but the storylines are not smooth. There are twists and tangents and that may take some getting used-to. Just when you’re immersed, even absorbed in this book, to the point where you forget about your surroundings, author Mark Whitaker abruptly moves to a different part of the story. It may be jarring.

And yet, it’s a big part of this book, and it’s essential for readers to know the investigation’s outcome and what we know today. It doesn’t change Malcolm X’s legacy, but it adds another frame around it.

If you’ve read the autobiography, if you haven’t thought about Malcolm X in a while, or if you think you know all there is to know, then you owe it to yourself to find “The Afterlife of Malcolm X.”

For you, this is a book you won’t easily forget.