White Paper

The process of technological progress is one of creative destruction, where some occupations, skills, products and firms become obsolete and are replaced by technologically superior alternatives. This process, facilitated by trade, improves overall economic growth and raises living standards in the long run. In the short run, however, it risks igniting economic and political tensions as some businesses fail and some people lose their jobs. At the same time, new jobs are created, and the skills required to perform others might change dramatically. Given historical trends of employment, it seems unlikely that all occupations that are highly susceptible to automation will be replaced by smart machines over the next few years. As the demand for skills in the labour market continues to grow, however, there is room for public policy to moderate the effect of technological change on the labour market in a number of ways. Each province faces slightly different challenges when developing policy to confront a technologically advanced and uncertain future. Some provinces, with more economic diversification or a concentration of workers in areas that are not very susceptible to automation, appear to be better situated for technological change than others. In developing policies to facilitate the transition to a high-tech future, provinces that face a higher risk of labour market disruption might require a broad-based approach, while those facing a lower risk of disruption might be able leverage existing policies and expand educational or unemployment support where necessary. Differences in the composition of employment and skills levels across the country highlight priority areas that provincial governments should consider in developing education and employment policy responses to adapt to current and future technological change. Disruption as a result of technological change is not a uniform process, so the policies to tackle it similarly should be not be uniform but should take into account each region’s strengths and weaknesses.

Through the Preparing for the Future of Work project, the World Economic Forum (WEF) provides a platform for designing and implementing collaboration on the future of work by major industries, the public sector, unions and educators. The output of the project’s first phase of work, Towards a Reskilling Revolution: A Future of Jobs for All, highlighted a method to identify viable and desirable job transition pathways for disrupted workers, using data from the United States. The project’s second phase has focused on two areas of work: 1) extending our previous research to assess the ‘business case’ for reskilling and establish its magnitude and 2) mobilizing selected industries to address specific future of work challenges and opportunities. This second report, Towards a Reskilling Revolution: Industry-Led Action for the Future of Work, demonstrates the results of this second phase of work. It encompasses the results of the business case research as well as data and proposed actions for five industries—Aerospace; Aviation, Travel and Tourism; Consumer; Financial Services; and Oil and Gas—to support them in their transition to the future of work. It is produced in collaboration with Boston Consulting Group, and with the support of Burning Glass Technologies. It is designed to provide key strategies, innovative frameworks and data-driven tools that can support businesses, governments, educators and civil society in taking proactive and coordinated action to prepare for the future of work.

This report presents ten strategies and twenty-two case studies that illustrate the range of actions that can be taken by educationalists, education technologists, business leaders and government to shift to a fully skills-based labour market. The strategies can help prepare the labour market for the future of work and build a new foundation for social mobility. They span a range of approaches: realizing the potential of education technology; building and certifying skills across the age range; designing coherent and portable certifications, mapping the skills content of jobs and aligning existing skills taxonomies.

The Global Risks Report 2019 is published against a backdrop of worrying geopolitical and geo-economic tensions. If unresolved, these tensions will hinder the world’s ability to deal with a growing range of collective challenges, from the mounting evidence of environmental degradation to the increasing disruptions of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The report presents the results of our latest Global Risks Perception Survey, in which nearly 1,000 decision-makers from the public sector, private sector, academia and civil society assess the risks facing the world. Nine out of 10 respondents expect worsening economic and political confrontations between major powers this year. Over a ten-year horizon, extreme weather and climate-change policy failures are seen as the gravest threats. This year’s report includes another series of “what-if” Future Shocks that examine quantum computing, weather manipulation, monetary populism, emotionally responsive artificial intelligence and other potential risks. The theme of emotions is also addressed in a chapter on the human causes and effects of global risks; the chapter calls for greater action around rising levels of psychological strain across the world.

Globalization 4.0 is at hand. A new phase of globalization driven by shifts in technology, geopolitics, and social and environmental needs, it will require concerted governance from multiple levels - corporate, national and international. This white paper represents the World Economic Forum (WEF) ’s call for engagement from stakeholders across globe and across societal and enterprise domains. In order to meet the challenges of Globalization 4.0, global actors must begin and sustain a dialogue that leads to a strengthening of global governance architecture, the multilateral system that has benefited the world and drives new cooperative arrangements for a demanding future. The purpose of this White Paper is to issue such a call for engagement by governments, companies, civil society institutions and citizens to strengthen and adapt international cooperation and domestic governance to these concurrent transformations.

There are many potential benefits to the application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies, including the reduction of economic inefficiencies and increase in high-skilled jobs. There are also significant risks that must be managed — through both technical design and policy-making instruments— to maximize these benefits for any given society while protecting its important ethical values. Technical solutions alone are insufficient to ensure ethics permeate AI systems design, absent legal mandate and economic incentives. While legislation can incentivize competition, it is also limited by territorial and time-based constraints. This raises the importance of using alternative policy-making instruments that demonstrate “agile governance. Human-centric AI governance is a complex enterprise that requires leveraging mixed policy tools to address the multi-layered ethical concerns at play.

As the types of skills needed in the labour market change rapidly, individual workers will have to engage in life-long learning if they are to achieve fulfilling and rewarding careers. For companies, reskilling and upskilling strategies will be critical if they are to find the talent they need and to contribute to socially responsible approaches to the future of work. For policy-makers, reskilling and retraining the existing workforce are essential levers to fuel future economic growth, enhance societal resilience in the face of technological change and pave the way for future-ready education systems for the next generation of workers. Yet while there has been much forecasting on transformations in labour markets, few practical approaches exist to identifying reskilling and job transition opportunities. Towards a Reskilling Revolution: A Future of Jobs for All provides a valuable new tool that will help individual workers, companies, and governments to prioritize their actions and investments. Using big data analytics of online job postings, the methodology in this report demonstrates the power of a data-driven approach to discover reskilling pathways and job transition opportunities. The methodology can be applied to a variety of taxonomies of job requirements and sources of data.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution is interacting with other socio-economic and demographic factors to create a perfect storm of business model change in all industries, resulting in major disruptions to labour markets. New categories of jobs will emerge, partly or wholly displacing others. The skill sets required in both old and new occupations will change in most industries and transform how and where people work. It may also affect female and male workers differently and transform the dynamics of the industry gender gap. The Future of Jobs Report aims to unpack and provide specific information on the relative magnitude of these trends by industry and geography, and on the expected time horizon for their impact to be felt on job functions, employment levels and skills.

The Global Risks Report 2018 is published at a time of encouraging headline global growth. Any breathing space this offers to leaders should not be squandered: the urgency of facing up to systemic challenges has intensified over the past year amid proliferating signs of uncertainty, instability and fragility. This year’s report covers more risks than ever, but focuses in particular on four key areas: environmental degradation, cybersecurity breaches, economic strains and geopolitical tensions. And in a new series called “Future Shocks” the report cautions against complacency and highlights the need to prepare for sudden and dramatic disruptions. The 2018 report also presents the results of our latest Global Risks Perception Survey, in which nearly 1,000 experts and decision-makers assess the likelihood and impact of 30 global risks over a 10-year horizon. Over this medium-term period, environmental and cyber risks predominate. However, the survey also highlights elevated levels of concern about risk trajectories in 2018, particularly in relation to geopolitical tensions.