5G is going to have a major impact on the job market, say Cisco
Cisco has been focusing its 5G energy on the enterprise side of things, and just last week recommitted on its plan to invest $5 billion in 5G during the next three years.
“Enterprises primarily use 4G LTE as a low-speed backup for activities like point-of-sale (PoS) traffic, but the latency and bandwidth characteristics of 5G means businesses can use it as a load-balanced primary data source for connectivity and more reliable backup.” Scott Harrell, senior vice president and general manager of Cisco’s enterprise networking business, explained at a Cisco Live event in June.
Cisco also believes that as 5G becomes the norm, it is going to have a major impact on the job market, and the company is already looking to prepare its employees for what is to come in the 5G era.
The $5 billion investment, according to executive vice president and chief people officer at Cisco Francine Katsoudas, demonstrates the company’s commitment to its people.
“We have to prepare our people ahead of time, and so we’re using technology now to help them understand the skills they have which is really important. And then we’re working with them to understand what roles they want in the future and bridging the gap,” Katsoudas said. “Our employees […] realize that their skills and capabilities are going to have to evolve as technology changes,” she added.
What exactly that evolution will look like is still unclear, but Cisco is developing strategies and programs to prepare its workforce for new jobs and opportunities that 5G will enable. “We’re going to have to change our mindset, and we’re going to have to realize that our roles are going to be changing on a regular cadence. I think learning now will be something that we just do on an ongoing basis,” Katsoudas said.
The $5 billion commitment was first announced in February, the same month that Cisco conducted a 5G trial in rural Scotland. In a blog post, Cisco’s Stephen Speirs who works in the Data Center and Cloud Services group, said, “The objective [of the trial] is to demonstrate 5G’s game-changing potential and practical use cases that help contribute to the business case for improving “beyond the city” connectivity.”
