Doors shut on many plans during the Covid-19 pandemic. Plans turned to day-by-day approaches, particularly where daily livelihood was concerned and job stability had to navigate mass layoffs and furloughs in some fields.
Yet, despite this rather asperse scenery, the following phenomenon happened: employees turned to learning new skills to keep their leverage on the working market, as well as to garner a new feeling of personal development. Case in point: technology proficiency.
The golden top 3 podium: Python, Java and C++
According to a study that collected data in August 2020 from more than 1,000 people in the United States, which is cited by www.developer-tech.com, around 1 in 4 people spent time learning coding languages during the lockdown.
The most commonly learned programming language were Python, followed by Java and C++.
Millennials, most engaged with new tech trends
70% of the study respondents said their technology skills moderately or greatly improved since the Covid-19 breakout. Breaking it down by generation groups, millennials, at nearly 3 out of 4 respondents, were the most likely to have improved their tech skills with Generation X not far behind.
Baby boomers were considerably less likely to report any tech improvement; still, over half said they were more skilled now than they were before the Covid-19 pandemic.
Biggest motivation to learn code: career development
The greatest motivations for people setting out to improve their skills were career development (55%), personal development (46%), and improving job search prospects (33%).
Online e-zines, online channels, and mostly freely available content, was the top source of training material for most (66%) people boosting their skills, with 1 in 3 turned to paid resources.
On average, people spent 7,2 hours per week improving their tech skills, the most time learning coding and programming languages, while improving telecommunication proficiency required the least study time.
One other interesting aspect to consider: people who had taken advantage of employee-provided training opportunities were much more inclined to pursue development on their own or through paid resources.
Over one-third of respondents (37%) whose employers didn’t offer technology education opportunities reported wishing their employer would do so.
Overall, close to 1 in 2 respondents believe their new or improved tech skills will be very or extremely beneficial to their career.
Article brought to you by VON Consulting Tech Division. People. Quality. Tech.
VON Consulting Tech Division is a start-up from San Diego, CA, which provides hardware design and verification services, IT support and software development for customers in different industries, mainly in IT, telecom, and networking and semiconductors industries. See more on http://www.vonconsulting.net.