REPORTAGE // Future of Jobs: Part 1
Highlights from a 2025 report from the World Economic Forum
The world of work is shifting beneath our feet. Technology, society, and the global economy are reshaping the terrain, transforming jobs and skills – sometimes subtly, sometimes dramatically. The World Economic Forum’s 2025 Future of Jobs Report maps this evolving landscape, drawing on data from over 1 000 employers (representing 14 million workers) across 55 economies and 22 industry clusters to reveal what lies ahead between now and 2030.
For African business leaders, understanding these global shifts is crucial. With a rapidly growing workforce and unique challenges, the continent faces both opportunities and risks in a constantly changing landscape. Here, we present the first of a two-part analysis, highlighting global trends identified in the WEF’s report. Stay tuned for part two, which will focus on the regional and industry shifts across Africa.
Tech-tonic shifts drive business transformation
Broadening digital access is the most cited macrotrend, with 60% of employers expecting it to reshape their business by 2030. This includes advances in AI and information processing (86%), robotics and automation (58%), and energy generation, storage, and distribution (41%). Technology’s impact is mixed – shrinking some roles while expanding others – with related skills most in demand.
Interestingly, the shifting interplay between humans, machines, and algorithms is central to redefining job roles across industries. Today, 47% of work tasks are performed by humans alone, 22% by technology, and 30% by human-machine collaboration (also referred to as augmentation). Employers expect an even split between the three categories – human, automation, and augmentation – by 2030. This will probably result in more productive output, but as the authors explain, “any concern about humans ‘running out of things to do’ due to automation would be misplaced”. Generative AI drives real impact when it enhances, not replaces, human capabilities. But this relies on oversight and possibly government regulation.
Other major forces reshaping the labour market include the rising cost of living (despite a projected decline in global inflation), as well as efforts to address climate change and accelerate the green transition. Demographic changes also play a role: ageing, shrinking workforces in high-income economies, and growing working-age populations in lower-income regions. Finally, geoeconomic fragmentation and geopolitical tensions, particularly around trade with the US and China, continue to exert pressure on global labour dynamics. While these trends are global, their impact is uneven, particularly across regions like sub-Saharan Africa.
New jobs eclipse job losses
Simply put, job creation and displacement due to evolving labour market forces is projected to result in net growth of 7% of today’s total employment, or 78 million (new) jobs. Predictably, technological advances in AI and robotics, and increasing digital access, result in the fastest-growing jobs (in percentage terms) of big data specialists, fintech engineers, and AI and machine learning specialists.
Security-related roles such as information security analysts, further driven by geoeconomic and political fragmentation, also feature within the top 15. Green transition trends, namely increasing efforts and investments to reduce carbon emissions and adapt to climate change, are expected to proliferate specialists in autonomous and electric vehicles, along with environmental and renewable energy engineers.
The largest growth in absolute terms, also driven by decarbonisation, includes frontline roles such as farmworkers, delivery drivers, and food processing workers, which form the backbone of many economies. Ageing populations are driving demand for care economy jobs, such as nursing professionals and social workers. In parallel, expanding working-age populations are fuelling the need for more secondary and tertiary teachers, supported by digital inclusion.
Two out of five skills will exchange or expire
The Future of Jobs Report could just as easily be called the Evolving Skills Landscape. It goes beyond job titles to project which core and emerging skills will endure, and which will not, in the face of ongoing disruption. For those already in or entering the workforce, reskilling and upskilling are now essential strategies. While “skill instability” has slowed slightly since earlier editions, the need to close skills gaps remains urgent.
Analytical thinking tops the list of in-demand skills for 2025, with 70% of companies rating it essential. Next comes resilience, flexibility, and agility – deeply human traits – along with leadership and social influence. AI and big data skills are growing fastest, followed by cybersecurity and tech literacy. But these technical skills depend on creative thinking, curiosity, and lifelong learning to drive value in practice. Problem-solving and adaptability are core to future success.
In contrast, demand is declining for manual dexterity, endurance, and attention to detail. Physical abilities have been losing relevance for some time – but this is the first edition to report a net negative shift.
Skills gaps between growing and declining roles are expected to widen, even as global employment increases. For 63% of employers, they are the top barrier to business transformation. As a result, 85% plan to upskill staff, 70% to hire for new skills, 40% to phase out outdated ones, and 50% to reskill. Put differently: by 2030, 41 out of every 100 workers will not require major training, but 59 will. This deepens the insider-outsider divide and worsens structural unemployment, especially in regions like ours.
People first in the future of work
While the advances in technology continue at pace, employers are encouragingly focussed on advancing employee health and wellbeing as part of the evolving human-tech interface. This has newly emerged as a top priority over the 2025–2030 period, a marked rise from 9th place in the 2023 edition, across all industries.
Other anticipated workforce strategies to attract, progress, and retain talent include training (upskilling and reskilling) and higher wages, particularly in the education and training sector. Finally, tapping into diverse talent pools by promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives has also seen a sharp increase in significance from 10% in the 2023 report to 47% in 2025. Providing remote or hybrid work opportunities also helps to align employee and employer expectations.
Hiring approaches are consistent with the previous report: employers are moving away from degree requirements in favour of skill-based hiring and work experience. The importance of practical, on-the-job learning is almost universal across all industries, testing candidates’ competencies rather than relying solely on their CVs. While university degrees still matter, there is a shift towards psychometric testing and cognitive abilities over traditional credentials.
From global trends to regional realities
Amid the turbulence, there is good news: the future of work looks more human-centric, with expanded roles, collaborative tech, and stronger investment in skills. Yet the global labour market is not without pressure points, from inflation and climate urgency to geopolitical fragmentation. While the global unemployment rate may sit at a 30-year low (4.9%), South Africa’s has edged up, and structural exclusions persist. In many low- and middle-income economies, women remain disproportionately unemployed, and NEET (not in employment, education, or training) youth numbers stay worryingly high.
In Part 2 of our review, we will focus further on sub-Saharan Africa to explore how these trends play out across the continent’s distinctive demographic, economic, and industrial terrain. Building a future of work that is inclusive and sustainable will depend on how business, government, and society collaborate today.
Read the report
For a deeper dive into the WEF's findings, read the complete report here.
by Ciska Thurman
