Executive Summary: the Future of Jobs and Skills
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Executive Summary The Future of Jobs Employment, Skills and Workforce Strategy for the Fourth Industrial Revolution January 2016 Executive Summary: The Future of Jobs and Skills Disruptive changes to business models will have a profound impact on the employment landscape over the coming Methodology years. Many of the major drivers of transformation currently affecting global industries are expected to have a significant The Future of Jobs Report’s research framework has been shaped and developed in collaboration with the Global impact on jobs, ranging from significant job creation to job Agenda Council on the Future of Jobs and the Global displacement, and from heightened labour productivity to Agenda Council on Gender Parity, including leading experts widening skills gaps. In many industries and countries, the from academia, international organizations, professional most in-demand occupations or specialties did not exist service firms and the heads of human resources of major 10 or even five years ago, and the pace of change is set organizations. Our analysis groups job functions into to accelerate. By one popular estimate, 65% of children specific occupations and broader job families, based on a streamlined version of the O*NET labour market information entering primary school today will ultimately end up working system used by researchers worldwide. in completely new job types that don’t yet exist. In such The dataset that forms the basis of the Report is a rapidly evolving employment landscape, the ability the result of an extensive survey of CHROs and other to anticipate and prepare for future skills requirements, senior talent and strategy executives from a total of 371 job content and the aggregate effect on employment leading global employers, representing more than 13 million employees across 9 broad industry sectors in 15 is increasingly critical for businesses, governments and major developed and emerging economies and regional individuals in order to fully seize the opportunities presented economic areas. by these trends—and to mitigate undesirable outcomes. The World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report seeks to understand the current and future impact of key disruptions on employment levels, skill sets and recruitment patterns in different industries and countries. It does so functions, such as Office and Administrative roles—and a by asking the Chief Human Resources Officers (CHROs) total gain of 2 million jobs, in Computer and Mathematical of today’s largest employers to imagine how jobs in their and Architecture and Engineering related fields. industry will change up to the year 2020. Manufacturing and Production roles are also expected to see a further bottoming out but are also anticipated to have DRIVERS OF CHANGE relatively good potential for upskilling, redeployment and We are today at the beginning of a Fourth Industrial productivity enhancement through technology rather than Revolution. Developments in previously disjointed fields pure substitution. such as artificial intelligence and machine learning, robotics, nanotechnology, 3D printing and genetics and New and Emerging Roles biotechnology are all building on and amplifying one Our research also explicitly asked respondents about another. Smart systems—homes, factories, farms, grids new and emerging job categories and functions that they or entire cities—will help tackle problems ranging from expect to become critically important to their industry by the supply chain management to climate change. Concurrent year 2020. Two job types stand out due to the frequency to this technological revolution are a set of broader socio- and consistency with which they were mentioned across economic, geopolitical and demographic developments, practically all industries and geographies. The first are data with nearly equivalent impact to the technological factors. analysts, which companies expect will help them make We also find that on average respondents expect that sense and derive insights from the torrent of data generated the impact for nearly all drivers will occur within the next 5 by technological disruptions. The second are specialized years, highlighting the urgency for adaptive action today. sales representatives, as practically every industry will need to become skilled in commercializing and explaining their EMPLOYMENT TRENDS offerings to business or government clients and consumers, The global workforce is expected to experience significant either due to the innovative technical nature of the products churn between job families and functions. Across the themselves or due to new client targets with which the countries covered by the Report, current trends could lead company is not yet familiar, or both. A particular need is to a net employment impact of more than 5.1 million jobs also seen in industries as varied as Energy and Media, lost to disruptive labour market changes over the period Entertainment and Information for a new type of senior 2015–2020, with a total loss of 7.1 million jobs—two thirds manager who will successfully steer companies through the of which are concentrated in routine white collar office upcoming change and disruption. Executive Summary: The Future of Jobs and Skills | 1 Drivers of change, industries overall Share of respondents rating driver as top trend, % DEMOGRAPHIC AND SOCIO-ECONOMIC Changing nature of work, flexible work 44% Middle class in emerging markets 23% Climate change, natural resources 23% Geopolitical volatility 21% Consumer ethics, privacy issues 16% Longevity, ageing societies 14% Young demographics in emerging markets 13% Women’s economic power, aspirations 12% Rapid urbanization 8% TECHNOLOGICAL Mobile internet, cloud technology 34% Processing power, Big Data 26% New energy supplies and technologies 22% Internet of Things 14% Sharing economy, crowdsourcing 12% Robotics, autonomous transport 9% Artificial intelligence 7% Adv. manufacturing, 3D printing 6% Adv. materials, biotechnology 6% 0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 Source: Future of Jobs Survey, World Economic Forum. Note: Names of drivers have been abbreviated0.0 to ensure legibility. 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 Timeframe to impact industries, business models Impact felt already 2015–2017 2018–2020 » Rising geopolitical volatility » New energy supplies and » Advanced robotics and » Mobile internet and cloud technology technologies autonomous transport » Advances in computing power and » The Internet of Things » Artificial intelligence and Big Data » Advanced manufacturing and machine learning » Crowdsourcing, the sharing 3D printing » Advanced materials, economy and peer-to-peer platforms » Longevity and ageing societies biotechnology and genomics » Rise of the middle class in emerging » New consumer concerns about markets ethical and privacy issues » Young demographics in emerging » Women’s rising aspirations and markets economic power » Rapid urbanization » Changing work environments and flexible working arrangements » Climate change, natural resource constraints and the transition to a greener economy 2 | Executive Summary: The Future of Jobs and Skills Net employment outlook by job family, 2015–2020 Employees (thousands, all focus countries) –4,759 Office and Administrative +492 Business and Financial Operations –1,609 Manufacturing and Production +416 Management –497 Construction and Extraction +405 Computer and Mathematical –151 Arts, Design, Entertainment, +339 Architecture and Engineering Sports and Media –109 Legal +303 Sales and Related –40 Installation and Maintenance +66 Education and Training Changes in Ease of Recruitment sets required to do them. Across nearly all industries, the Given the overall disruption industries are experiencing, it impact of technological and other changes is shortening the is not surprising that, with current trends, competition for shelf-life of employees’ existing skill sets. talent in in-demand job families such as Computer and For example, technological disruptions such as Mathematical and Architecture and Engineering and other robotics and machine learning—rather than completely strategic and specialist roles will be fierce, and finding replacing existing occupations and job categories—are efficient ways of securing a solid talent pipeline a priority likely to substitute specific tasks previously carried out as for virtually every industry. Most of these roles across part of these jobs, freeing workers up to focus on new industries, countries and job families are already perceived tasks and leading to rapidly changing core skill sets in as hard to recruit for currently and—with few exceptions— these occupations. Even those jobs that are less directly the situation is expected to worsen significantly over the affected by technological change and have a largely stable 2015-2020 period. employment outlook—say, marketing or supply chain professionals targeting a new demographic in an emerging SKILLS STABILITY market—may require very different skill sets just a few years In this new environment, business model change often from now as the ecosystems within which they operate translates to skill set disruption almost simultaneously change. and with only a minimal time lag. Our respondents report On average, by 2020, more than a third of the desired that a tangible impact of many of these disruptions on the core skill sets of most occupations will be comprised of adequacy of employees’ existing skill sets can already be skills that are not yet considered crucial to the job today, felt in a wide range of jobs and industries