REPORTAGE // Future of Jobs: Part 2
Trends for sub-Saharan Africa from a 2025 report from the World Economic Forum
In part one of our review of the World Economic Forum’s 2025 Future of Jobs Report, we saw a global picture, a wide landscape of shifting job priorities and projections. On closer inspection, whilst African soil is swept along by these macro-conditions, it is hardened by the continent’s distinctive demographic and economic terrain. Part two of our review seeks to differentiate sub-Saharan Africa specifically, forecasting the region’s labour market dynamics leading up to 2030.
The report draws on data from over 1 000 employers (representing 14 million workers) across 55 economies and 22 industry clusters to reveal macrotrends, jobs evolution, skills outlook, and workforce strategies. 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 terrain. Here are five trends to watch:
Global vs African macrotrends reshaping the labour landscape
Globally, technological change (AI and big data, cybersecurity and tech literacy) is driving the fastest-growing skills. Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) reflects this pattern, in countries like Nigeria, where 87% of employers project a rising need by 2030. Green transition (climate-mitigation/adaptation) trends are among the most transformative worldwide and also open demand in Africa for renewable-energy and environmental roles as economies electrify. Demographic shifts, such as growing working-age populations, mean that globally, care economy and teaching roles are expanding alongside tech. Africa similarly expects growth in educator and customer/service roles as digital offshoring and business process outsourcing (BPO) scale.
Skills gaps, however, are the biggest threat to business transformation – cited globally by 63% of companies, with African employers echoing this. Heavy workforce development, including practices like upskilling, reskilling and talent retention, are critical on the continent to align with global currents.
Northern outlook
Economies in North Africa reflect many of the same global and continental shifts, yet their outlook is shaped by distinct national priorities. Across the region, optimism about future talent availability exceeds the global average, even amid rapid skill disruption (on-the-job skills projected to change).
In Egypt, expanding digital access and economic pressures are driving a strong focus on upskilling – particularly in resource management and operations (43%, compared to 24% globally) and core literacy and numeracy. Morocco’s labour market is led by the green transition and economic uncertainty, with employers anticipating rising demand for AI, creative thinking, and leadership skills. Employers are prioritising youth inclusion at rates far above the global average, though fewer are tapping broader diverse talent pools compared to global peers (24%, compared to 47% globally).
Tunisia faces acute skills gaps, with 80% of employers identifying lack of expertise as the top execution risk to business transformation by 2030. Most business leaders (86%) aim to upskill their workforce, prompting heavy investment in leadership, creative thinking, AI, big data and programming skills. Across these economies, closing competency gaps, advancing digital capabilities, and fostering adaptable, inclusive workforces stand out as the foundations for resilience in the decade ahead.
Stepping South
Like Egypt, Morocco, and Tunisia, Nigeria’s priorities include training the workforce towards high-demand technical skills – particularly AI and big data – paired with human-centred capabilities such as customer service and leadership-type competencies. The difference is that Nigeria’s skills demand is led by network and cybersecurity (with growth expectations of 87%, far above the global average of 70%), reflecting its push to expand the BPO and digital job sectors. Nigerian employers demand more systems thinking and global citizenship skills than their North African counterparts.
More broadly, Sub-Saharan employers echo global anxiety around rapid technological advancement (also labour and social issues, and cost-of-living pressures), but the region faces one distinct difference: at a time when most developed countries are confronting shrinking and ageing populations, the population of Sub-Saharan Africa is expected to rise by 79% over the next 30 years. Whilst these numbers might reflect a robust workforce, they don’t necessarily guarantee talent availability, leaving the skills gap issue as burning as burgeoning tech.
Opportunity gains and losses
Almost half of SSA bosses see talent availability improving in 2025–2030, compared to 29% globally. This optimism, based on increasing interconnectedness (enabled by digital expansion) and inclusivity (of, for example, women and young people) is further bolstered by remote work acceleration. “The world is at an unprecedented crossroads” marked by volatile geopolitics, demographic shifts, and the impact of new technologies on jobs, particularly on the African continent – so says Kasthuri Soni, CEO of Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator. Yet these same forces create “a significant opportunity for African youth to seize the increasing global demand for a digitally skilled workforce, offshoring capabilities and labour mobility.”
Access to the global labour market, however, is challenging for most of South Africa’s workforce, with SA’s unemployment rate, at 33.2% overall and 46.1% among youth aged 15-34, remaining a critical concern (StatsSA). Due to a complex interplay of factors – a struggling economy, limited education and skills development, and social and economic inequalities – these issues are further compounded by realities like insufficient public transport, high costs of job hunting, and a lack of work experience. Even though measures like removing degree requirements (34% of SA companies) to open pathways into AI, robotics, and other growth areas offer hope, certain barriers remain persistent. Widespread skills gaps and disruption (36% of employees – equivalent to over 6 million of the country’s 16.7 million workers), and organisational culture and resistance to change, all challenge SA’s job prospects leading up to 2030.
Levers for transformation
Across Sub-Saharan Africa, employers are responding to transformation pressures with targeted workforce strategies. As seen in Nigeria, this includes expanding BPO and closing critical cybersecurity skills gaps, while Zimbabwe is stepping up large-scale workforce development initiatives. South African employers, meanwhile, are placing strong emphasis on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) to expand their talent base – with more than half targeting individuals from disadvantaged religious, ethnic or racial backgrounds (compared to 27% globally), and over 40% focusing on candidates from low-income communities (compared to 24% globally). These efforts aim to open pathways into emerging fields such as AI, robotics, and green technology, helping to address both the country’s deep skills gaps and its high unemployment rate.
The WEF report sketches a scene of both opportunity and challenge for sub-Saharan Africa. The region’s young and growing population offers a potential talent dividend at a time when many economies face demographic decline, yet the rapid pace of technological change and persistent skills gaps threaten to leave much of this potential untapped. Harnessing Africa’s demographic advantage will require governments, employers, and educators to join forces – investing in education, digital infrastructure, and inclusive hiring – to ensure the continent’s workforce is ready to thrive in jobs of the future.
by Ciska Thurman
