Trends to keep an eye on in 2021

If 2020 has been one crazy rollercoaster ride, 2021 is a year in which you do not want to bet against the house. 2020 might have started the decade off with quite the surprise, but 2021 has a few tricks up its sleeve worth keeping an eye out for too.

Vaccine tug-of-war

Protectionism has been on the rise the world over for the last few years, and as the first vaccines start to get rolled out (Pfizer and Moderna have been in the news recently), the focus will shift onto the distribution of these cures, with multiple countries trying to get their share of them. Remarkably, only a little less than half of respondents from a global poll stated that they would be completely ready to take the vaccine at the earliest

Crawling back to economic normalcy

America is facing a third wave of Covid, and France has recently announced a reinforcement of one of the strictest lockdowns anywhere in the world. And as others follow suit and start to do all they can to shut down the virus, the economy does take a backseat. Hopefully, the administration of a vaccine will be a positive development for global denizens and the global economy, but governments will have a fine tightrope to walk in balancing the needs of their economies, industries, organizations, and employees so as to ensure everyone’s long-term health, and a return back to something resembling normalcy.

Tech takes centrestage

2020 has seen a rapid acceleration in the uptake of all things tech across industries and all walks of life. Be it at home or the workplace, many of our traditional behaviors have undergone a sea change, and it will likely remain that way in 2021, as this becomes the much talked about ‘new normal’.

Going green

One of the very few upsides of 2020 has been a sharp downturn of the carbonization of the global economy, and this is a trend that will continue to gain pace across the world as we pursue sustainable solutions that improve the quality of life for us and generations to come. Governments and industries alike will invest in a manner that will see some jobs rendered moot, and new ones emerge, and emissions get cut as we start leaning towards greener energy sources.

As the world reels from not just the pandemic, but an economic tsunami the likes of which hasn’t been seen in decade, and fractious geopolitics that could stymie the engine of growth, we hope 2021 is a year that rings in good fortune and luck for all across the globe.