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The labour market is harnessing the power of technology

The WEF estimates that digitalisation may displace 85 million jobs by 2025, while giving rise to many new roles.

According to the Future of Jobs Report 2020 by the World Economic Forum, accelerated technological adoption and process automation by companies will disrupt 85 million jobs across 26 major advanced and emerging economies by 2025, while 97 million new roles may emerge that are more adapted to the new division of labour between humans, machines and algorithms.

The WEF report draws on the Future of Jobs Survey of senior executives, representing nearly 300 large and medium businesses in 15 industries, which collectively employ 8 million workers.

Some 84% of business leaders are set to rapidly digitalise working processes, including a significant expansion of remote working

“COVID-19 has accelerated the arrival of the future of work,” said Saadia Zahidi, Manging Director, World Economic Forum. “Accelerating automation and the fallout from the COVID-19 recession has deepened existing inequalities across labour markets and reversed gains in employment made since the global financial crisis in 2007–2008. The window of opportunity for proactive management of this change is closing fast.”

Some 84% of business leaders are set to rapidly digitalise working processes, including a significant expansion of remote working. Employers say there is the potential to move 44% of their workforce to operate remotely and 78% of respondents expect some negative impact on worker productivity from this.

Some 50% of employers are expecting to accelerate the automation of business processes.

Among the companies operating in Russia, 80% are accelerating the digitalisation of work processes and 47% are accelerating the automation of tasks. These indicators slightly lag behind the world average.

Some 43% of businesses surveyed indicate that they are set to reduce their workforce due to technology integration, 41% plan to expand their use of contractors for task-specialised work, and 34% plan to expand their workforce due to technology integration.

There will be a surge in demand for workers who can fill green economy jobs, as well as new roles in engineering, cloud computing and product development

According to the survey, by 2025, employers will divide work between humans and machines equally. Roles that leverage human skills will rise in demand. Machines will be primarily focused on information and data processing, administrative tasks and routine manual jobs for white-collar positions.

New roles will emerge across the care economy, in Fourth Industrial Revolution technology industries like artificial intelligence, and in content creation fields. Furthermore, there will be a surge in demand for workers who can fill green economy jobs, as well as new roles in engineering, cloud computing and product development.

The report notes that for those workers set to remain in their roles in the next five years, nearly 50% will need reskilling in their core competencies. Some 66% of employers recognise the value of reskilling their workforce and expect to see a return on investment in upskilling and reskilling of current employees within one year.

“In the future, we will see the most competitive businesses are the ones that have invested heavily in their human capital – the skills and competencies of their employees,” Zahidi said.

According to the survey, by 2025, employers will divide work between humans and machines equally.

“The most competitive businesses will be the ones that have invested heavily in their human capital – the skills and competencies of their employees”

The individuals and communities most negatively affected by the unprecedented changes brought about by COVID-19 are likely to be those that are already most disadvantaged, the report says. In the absence of proactive efforts, inequality is likely to be exacerbated by the dual impact of technology and the pandemic recession.

LinkedIn, a WEF report partner, found that a growing number of people are making career changes to entirely new occupations. According to data gathered over the past five years, 50% of career shifts into data and artificial intelligence are from different fields. That figure is 75% for sales roles, 72% for content creation positions and 67% for engineering roles.

According to the report, the top skills which employers see as rising in prominence are critical thinking, analysis and problem-solving. Newly emerging in 2020 are skills in self-management such as flexibility and stress tolerance.

The report features data from online learning platform Coursera, provider of human capital management services ADP and AI-powered career GPS FutureFit AI, among many other WEF partners.


the future of jobs 2020 covid-19 artificial intelligence business processes digitalisation automation

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