Policy Brief

Future of Jobs Report 2025

The World Economic Forum’s latest Future of Jobs Report 2025 presents a comprehensive analysis of the current trends of the rapidly evolving global labour market, that is undergoing transformative changes in the face of several geopolitical challenges and rapid technological advancements such as generative AI. Drawing from an extensive survey of global employers representing 14 million workers across 55 economies, the report provides valuable insights into the emerging jobs landscape during the 2025-2030 period.

Drivers of labour-market transformation

The report identifies five macro-trends impacting the global labour market and the current business climate including technological change, the green transition, geoeconomic fragmentation, economic uncertainty, and demographic shifts.

Macrotrends driving business transformation

Source: Future of Jobs Report 2025, World Economic Forum

As per the survey, 60% of employers believe that expanding digital access is the most important factor that will transform global labour markets, with Artificial Intelligence (AI) and information processing technologies expected to have the biggest impacts on business transformation.

Green transition is identified as another critical driver of labour market transformation, with 47% of surveyed employers anticipating increased investments and efforts to reduce carbon emissions. Decarbonization efforts are expected to be a key driver particularly across more carbon-intensive industries such as Automotive and Aerospace and Mining and Metals.

The report also highlights economic uncertainty and geoeconomic fragmentation as two critical drivers of current labour market trends. While the global economic outlook is expected to be stable in 2025, significant economic pressures including high cost of living and slower economic growth are expected to have significant impacts across employers. As per survey results, one in six employers are expected to be impacted by stricter anti-trust and competition regulations. Further, geoeconomic fragmentation and trade tensions including trade and investment restrictions and evolving industrial policies and subsidies are expected to significantly affect organizations.

Demographic trends such as ageing population in high income economies and growing working-age population in several lower-income economies are identified as critical factors that can directly impact global labour supply.

Jobs Outlook

According to the Future of Jobs report, around 170 million jobs are expected to be created in the next five years, which is around 14% of current total employment. The survey estimates that the growth in jobs will be offset by displacement of 92 million jobs by 2030, which is estimated at around 7% of today’s employment.

The report also provides insights on the fastest growing and fastest declining jobs in the next five years. The fastest growing jobs roles by 2020 tend to be driven by technological advancements with job roles such as Big Data specialist, FinTech engineers and software developers occupying top spots. On the other hand, job roles that are expected to witness significant declines included postal service clerks, bank tellers, cashiers, and administrative assistants, among others.

Fastest growing and fastest declining jobs, 2025-2030

Source: Future of Jobs Report 2025, World Economic Forum

Skills Outlook

Based on the survey, the report analyses expectations around core skills by 2030, current skill requirements and expected trends in skill disruptions. Further, the report provides a detailed overview of key drivers of skill transformation along with anticipated training requirements.

Post the Covid-19 pandemic, the ongoing pace of skills disruptions has relatively stabilised, with employers adapting to changes such as accelerated adoption of digital tools, technologies and remote working solutions. As per the survey, around 39% of respondents expect workers’ core skills to change by 2030 in contrast to 44% reported last year. The reduction can be attributed to a greater focus on reskilling and upskilling and training programmes in the past few years, that has led to better management of future skill requirements. However, the impact of skills disruptions varies across economies, with high-income economies witnessing relative stability in contrast to lower and upper-middle income and conflict-affected economies, which are expected to experience greater skill disruptions.

Analytical thinking continues to be a top core skill and is listed as an essential skill as per current requirements by 7 out of 10 companies. Resilience, flexibility, and agility along with leadership and social influence are also considered top core skills followed by creative thinking and motivation. Top skills also include technological literacy along with strong interpersonal abilities and high emotional intelligence, which reflect the growing importance of balancing hard and soft skills for achieving success in the current jobs landscape.

Core Skills in 2025

Source: Future of Jobs Report 2025, World Economic Forum

The skill evolution during the next five years will see the rapid growth of AI and Big Data across almost all sectors, with 90% of respondents expecting an increase in such skills. On the other hand, lowest growth shares are observed in sectors such as agriculture, forestry and fishing (70%) and accommodation, food and leisure industries (69%). Environmental stewardship and networks and cybersecurity are also listed as top core skills in 2030.

Given these emerging trends and growing demand across these sectors, businesses must develop the requisite skills and capabilities for successfully navigating the dynamic workforce landscape. The findings also underscore the critical importance of targeted skill development and training efforts for supporting the workforce transition to evolving job roles and the future of work.

Reskilling and upskilling strategies

Taking cognizance of evolving demands, employers around the world have significantly invested in upskilling and reskilling their workers. The survey respondents reported completing training and development initiatives for 50% of their workforce, which is higher than the 41% figure reported last year. This reflects an increasing global trend of training and continuous learning across industries.

Industries such as pensions management supply chain, transportation and telecommunications have witnessed significant growth in worker training programmes while industries such as agriculture, forestry and fishing and real estate have lagged behind.

The anticipated training needs also vary across industries and geographies. Industries such as telecommunications and information and technology services anticipate significant training needs with 63% and 62% of their workforce respectively. North American companies estimate that 67% of their workforce will require training while the number is projected around 50% in Central Asia, the Middle East and North Africa.

Workforce Strategies

Given the macro-trends of 2025-2030 period, upskilling the workforce is the most common workforce strategy with 85% of survey respondents expected to adopt this approach. This is closely followed by strategies including task automation and workforce augmentation with new technologies. Automation acquires more relevance as a strategy in high-income economies as compared to upper and lower-middle income economies.

Workforce Strategies, 2025-2030

Source: Future of Jobs Report 2025, World Economic Forum

Among business practices that promotes talent availability, supporting employee health and well-being emerged as a top priority followed by provision of effective reskilling and upskilling opportunities. Improving talent progression and promotion also continues to be an area of key focus.

Sustained public investment in skills including funding for reskilling and upskilling were identified as critical public policy interventions for increased access to talent.

Read the full report here