Quarter of jobs expected to change in the next five years

Employers anticipate 69 million new jobs to be created and 83 million eliminated among the 673 million jobs corresponding to the dataset, a net decrease of 14 million jobs, or 2 percent of the current employment.

The Future of Jobs Survey brings together the perspective of 803 companies – collectively employing more than 11.3 million workers – in 27 industry clusters and 45 economies from all world regions.

Macrotrends, including the green transition, ESG standards and localization of supply chains, are the leading drivers of job growth, with economic challenges including high inflation, slower economic growth and supply shortages posing the greatest threat.

Advancing technology adoption and increasing digitization will cause significant labour market churn, with an overall net positive in job creation, according to the report.

 “For people around the world, the past three years have been filled with upheaval and uncertainty for their lives and livelihoods, with COVID-19, geopolitical and economic shifts, and the rapid advancement of AI and other technologies now risks adding more uncertainty,” said Saadia Zahidi, Managing Director, World Economic Forum.

“The good news is that there is a clear way forward to ensure resilience. Governments and businesses must invest in supporting the shift to the jobs of the future through the education, reskilling and social support structures that can ensure individuals are at the heart of the future of work.”

While technology continues to pose both challenges and opportunities to labour markets, employers expect most technologies to contribute positively to job creation.

The fastest growing roles are being driven by technology and digitalization.

Big data ranks at the top among technologies seen to create jobs, with 65 percent of survey respondents expecting job growth in related roles.

The employment of data analysts and scientists, big data specialists, AI machine learning specialists and cybersecurity professionals is expected to grow on average by 30 percent by 2027.

Training workers to utilize AI and big data will be prioritized by 42 percent of surveyed companies in the next five years, ranking behind analytical thinking (48 percent) and creative thinking (43 percent) in importance.

Digital commerce will lead to the largest absolute gains in jobs as approximately 2 million new digitally enabled roles are expected, such as e-commerce specialists, digital transformation specialists, and digital marketing and strategy specialists.

At the same time, the fastest declining roles are also being driven by technology and digitalization, with clerical or secretarial roles including bank tellers, cashiers and data entry clerks expected to decline fastest.

The Future of Jobs Report 2023 suggests that tasks are seen as no more automated now than they were three years ago when the report was last published.

About a third of tasks (34 percent) are currently automated, just 1 percent above the 2020 figure.

Surveyed companies also revised down their expectations for further automation, to 42 percent of tasks by 2027, compared to 2020 estimates of 47 percent of tasks by 2025.

But while expectations of the displacement of physical and manual work by machines has decreased, reasoning, communicating and coordinating – all traits with a comparative advantage for humans – are expected to be more automatable in the future.

Artificial intelligence, a key driver of potential algorithmic displacement, is expected to be adopted by nearly 75 percent of surveyed companies and is expected to lead to high churn – with 50 percent of organizations expecting it to create job growth and 25percent expecting it to create job losses.

Investment in the green transition and climate-change mitigation, as well as increasing consumer awareness of sustainability issues are driving industry transformation and opening new opportunities in the labour market.

The strongest net job-creation effects are expected to be driven by investments that facilitate the green transition of businesses, with more than half of respondents expecting it.

As countries seek more renewable energy sources, roles including renewable energy engineers and solar energy installation and systems engineers will be in high demand.

Investment will also drive growth in more generalist sustainability roles, such as sustainability specialists and environmental protection professionals, which are expected to grow by 33 percent and 34 percent respectively, translating to growth of approximately 1 million jobs.

However, the largest absolute gains in jobs will come from education and agriculture.

The report finds that jobs in the education industry are expected to grow by about 10 percent, leading to 3 million additional jobs for vocational education teachers and university and higher education teachers.

Jobs for agricultural professionals, especially agricultural equipment operators, graders and sorters, are expected to see a 15 percent-30 percent increase, leading to an additional 4 million jobs.

A Recruit Holdings company finds that while demand for social jobs such as those in health and education have grown faster during the pandemic, these job openings are harder to fill than others.

“At Recruit, we believe we must continue to embrace AI and technology to help job seekers and employers as we navigate near-term macroeconomic headwinds and long-term labour market challenges,” said Hisayuki "Deko" Idekoba, President, CEO and Representative Director of the Board of Recruit Holdings.

“We expect a labour shortage to remain for many years ahead, across many sectors and particularly as the population ages. Therefore, it is essential that we identify new ways to simplify the hiring process to support a thriving economy and society where everyone can prosper together.”

Companies report that skills gaps and an inability to attract talent are the key barriers to transformation, showing a clear need for training and reskilling across industries.

Six in 10 workers will require training before 2027 but only half of employees are seen to have access to adequate training opportunities today.

At the same time, the report estimates that, on average, 44 percent of an individual worker’s skills will need to be updated.

The gap between workers’ skills and future business needs puts the onus on companies and governments to enable learning and reskilling opportunities.

Government funding for skills training would help connect talent to employment, according to 45 percent of businesses surveyed.

For example, while there is continued growth in green jobs in the past four years, as indicated by additional research conducted by LinkedIn for this year’s report, reskilling and up-skilling towards green skills is not keeping pace.

“The sustained growth of green jobs is really great news, particularly for job seekers who are facing upheaval in the labour market,” said Sue Duke, Head of Global Public Policy, LinkedIn.

“But LinkedIn’s data is clear that while there’s strong demand for talent with green skills, people are not developing green skills at anywhere near a fast enough rate to meet climate targets. There is an opportunity for everyone to help turn this around. Governments must champion the green skills agenda and businesses can and must do more to equip their employees with the skills needed to deliver genuine environmental change.”

In response to the cost-of-living crisis, 36 percent of companies recognize that offering higher wages could help them attract talent.

Yet, companies are planning to mix both investment and displacement to make their workforces more productive and cost-effective.

Four in five surveyed companies plan to invest in learning and training on the job as well as automating processes in the next five years.

Two thirds of companies expect to see a return on investment on skills training within a year of the investment, whether in the form of enhanced cross-role mobility, increased worker satisfaction or improved worker productivity.