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Jan 21
How will AI affect the future of work? This is a focus topic across every company, from HR teams to executives to employees. The question’s importance and its difficulty to answer, is one reason the World Economic Forum tackled this topic in its annual Future of Jobs Report. With rapidly developing technology trends, the report offers organizations a roadmap to refine their workforce strategies, future-proof their operations and proactively position themselves to attract and retain top talent. From an AI standpoint, we found the report fascinating for eight reasons.
According to this year’s Future of Jobs Report 2025, technology will be the most disruptive force shaping the labor market, outpacing all other macro job creation and displacement trends. Over the next five years, advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and information-processing technologies will accelerate digital access, creating 19 million jobs while displacing 9 million. This shift will reshape workforce dynamics, with the top three fastest-growing skills — AI-driven data analysis, networking and cybersecurity and technological literacy — becoming essential.
For employers, this means prioritizing candidates who exhibit analytical and systems thinking to tackle complex, data-driven challenges effectively. Furthermore, other evolving technologies, like the rise of robots and autonomous systems, highlight the increasing demand for programming expertise and adaptability to automated technologies. Across industries, to remain competitive, employers must seek talent with core technological proficiencies to integrate and collaborate with these evolving systems. While the report chart shows all fast-growing jobs, figure 1 highlights technology-related roles.
Source: World Economic Forum Future of Jobs Report 2025, complete chart on page 19
The evolving relationship between humans, machines and algorithms will transform many roles across all industries. The Future Jobs Report highlights how the balance between automation and augmentation will reshape the workforce. Respondents estimate that 47% of their work tasks are performed primarily by humans, 22% are handled mainly by technology (including machines and algorithms) and 30% involve a collaborative effort.
However, by 2030, these proportions are expected to shift significantly, with tasks nearly evenly divided between human, machine and hybrid approaches. For employers, this signals a need to rethink workforce strategies, adopting models that leverage technology’s growing versatility while capitalizing on human ingenuity and adaptability. This shift underscores the importance of preparing for a future where work becomes dynamically shared between people and AI-driven technologies.
Source: World Economic Forum Future of Jobs Report 2025, complete chart on page 26
Human-machine collaboration, or augmentation, is a critical concept for future jobs. Rather than replacing human work, this approach entails designing and utilizing technology to complement and enhance human capabilities. The report predicts that every industry will experience a decrease in the proportion of tasks performed exclusively by humans by 2030. However, the degree to which this shift is driven by automation versus augmentation will vary by sector. This finding highlights the opportunity for employers to align technological advancements with workforce strengths, fostering a balance between efficiency and human ingenuity.
When the World Economic Forum released its Future of Jobs Report in 2016, surveyed employers anticipated that 35% of their workers’ skills would be disrupted in the future. This prediction gained momentum during the COVID-19 pandemic, as rapid advancements in frontier technologies brought profound changes to working environments and skill demands. The subsequent editions of the report highlighted escalating levels of skills instability. However, following the pandemic, employers have adjusted well to these challenges. Although uncertainties remain, particularly around the long-term impact of generative AI, the pace of skill disruption appears to be stabilizing.
According to the latest Jobs Survey Report, employers expect 39% of workers’ core skills to change by 2030, down from 44% in 2023. This trend may reflect an increasing emphasis on continuous learning, upskilling and reskilling initiatives to help businesses proactively align with future skill requirements and reduce workforce instability.
Source: World Economic Forum Future of Jobs Report 2025, complete chart on page 33
According to insights from the 2025 report, employers increasingly expect workers to balance hard and soft skills to succeed in modern workplaces. Companies noted key competencies such as technical proficiency, interpersonal skills, emotional intelligence and a commitment to lifelong learning as critical soft skills. These findings highlight the growing emphasis on aligning technical expertise with collaborative and adaptive capabilities to meet evolving industry demands.
Since the 2023 edition of the report, the relevance of core skills has significantly shifted. Skills such as leadership and social influence, AI and big data, talent management and service orientation have become more critical.
According to employer projections for the next five years, as highlighted in Figure 4, technological skills are expected to outpace other skill types in importance. AI and big data are leading this growth, identified as the fastest-rising competencies, followed by networks, cybersecurity and technological literacy. Complementing these advancements, creative thinking and socio-emotional skills such as resilience, flexibility, agility, curiosity and lifelong learning are also gaining prominence. Employers should consider integrating these skill sets into workforce development strategies.
Since the Chat GPT release in November 2022, there has been a rapid surge in generative AI (GenAI) investment and adoption across various sectors. GenAI enables users to interact with the technology as though conversing with a human. This capability reduces the barriers to adoption and the technical skills needed to use this technology in many roles. As a result, GenAI skills are in demand. Not surprisingly, the information technology sector has the highest adoption of AI. Further, advanced economies use it at higher rates than low-income economies.
This technology is in its infancy, so long-term gains are unknown. Generative AI could help employees perform more expert tasks, expanding their roles. As discussed above, AI will improve the quantity or quality of output for many roles, enhancing human capabilities rather than replacing them (augmentation).
GenAI can transform the future of jobs through human-machine collaboration. According to the report, human-centered skills remain critical, even in our rapidly evolving, tech-driven workplaces. This finding highlights an urgent need to make reskilling and upskilling permanent strategies to bridge emerging skill gaps. Employers must prioritize these strategies to help workers transition into roles that combine technical expertise with essential human-centric abilities. By investing in adaptable talent development, businesses can create a workforce equipped for the challenges of tomorrow.
In the latest findings, 50% of the workforce had completed training as part of learning and development programs, a notable improvement from 41% in 2023. This upward trend is prevalent across nearly every industry, underlining the growing recognition of continuous skill development as critical to every industry.
While training needs vary across industries and regions, most employers are committed to funding their programs to boost productivity (77%) and competitiveness (70%). Talent retention, cited as the third-highest priority, further reflects the value employers place on workforce development in a rapidly evolving job market.
According to this year’s report, skill gaps in the labor market will remain the leading challenge for businesses striving for digital transformation from 2025 to 2030, with 63% of employers citing it as a primary barrier. This challenge represents a notable increase compared to 2023, where 60% of respondents flagged local skill deficits as an obstacle. These gaps are widespread, topping the list of transformation barriers across 52 out of 55 economies and 19 of 22 sectors surveyed.
The second key hurdle is organizational culture and resistance to change (46% of participants noted this). This finding stresses the difficulty many companies have adapting their internal processes, structures and mindsets to new trends and disruptions.
In addition, employers’ expectations around future talent availability have shifted significantly. Only 29% of businesses anticipate improved talent availability between 2025 and 2030. This issue highlights growing concerns about securing qualified professionals for future jobs.
The World Economic Forum’s Future Jobs Report highlights a significant shift in workforce strategies as companies prepare for AI’s disruptive impact on employment. By 2030, 77% of employers plan to prioritize reskilling and upskilling their workforce to enhance collaboration with AI systems. This strategy is especially emphasized in higher-income economies (87%) but remains a top priority globally, regardless of income level.
Process and task automation follow closely, with 73% of employers aiming to accelerate its adoption, albeit at a slightly lower rate than in 2023. Notably, 63% of employers intend to integrate new technologies to complement their workforce, underlining the growing reliance on AI-driven processes. For employers, this finding highlights the pivotal role of skill development and automation in meeting the demands of a rapidly evolving job market and staying competitive in the future workspace.
Another developing trend is skill-based hiring. Eliminating academic degree requirements is gaining momentum as an effective strategy to broaden talent pools. According to this year’s report, employers are becoming heavily reliant on work experience to assess candidates, with 81% planning to prioritize it as a key evaluation method from 2025 to 2030. This trend is consistent with previous reports highlighting businesses’ enduring importance on practical, on-the-job learning and measurable achievements in the hiring process. For employers seeking to stay competitive, the emphasis on skills and experience aligns with evolving workforce trends and talent acquisition strategies.
While other macro trends are impacting the future of work, technology is undoubtedly playing an outsized role. As such, companies must plan for changes to the workforce landscape as they navigate fast-moving technological developments. The World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report is a valuable tool, helping companies pinpoint emerging trends and providing insights into strategies to mitigate the risks and challenges to their workforce. Click here to read the full report.
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