Technological disruption causes global reskilling crisis

Millions of jobs are at risk due to technological disruption according to a new World Economic Forum report.

The report, Towards a Reskilling Revolution: A Future of Jobs for All, reveals that 1.4 million jobs in the US alone are vulnerable and that the global economy is facing a reskilling crisis.

The report analyses nearly 1000 job types across the US economy, encompassing 96% of employment in the country. Its aim is to assess the scale of the reskilling task required to protect workforces from an expected wave of automation brought on by the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

Drawing on this data for the US economy, the report finds that 57% of jobs expected to be disrupted belong to women. If called on today to move to another job with skills that match their own, 16% of workers would have no opportunities to transition and another 25% would have only between one and three matches.

At the other end of the spectrum, 2% of workers have more than 50 options. This group makes up a very small, fortunate minority: on average, all workers would have 10 transition options today.

The positive finding of the report is the huge opportunity identified for reskilling to lift wages and increase social mobility. With reskilling, for example, the average worker in the US economy would have 48 viable job transitions — nearly as much as the 2% with the most options today. Among those transitions, 24 jobs would lead to higher wages.

The people who will do best in the transitions underway are those who have ‘hybrid’ skills — transferable skills like collaboration and critical thinking, as well as deeper expertise in specific areas. Both highly specialised and highly generalist roles will need significant reskilling.

“Work provides people with meaning, identity and opportunity. We need to break out of the current paralysis and recognise that skills are the ‘great redistributor’,” World Economic Forum Head of Education, Gender and Work System Initiative and Member of the Executive Committee Saadia Zahidi said.

“Equipping people with the skills they need to make job transitions is the fuel needed for growth — and to secure stable livelihoods for people in the midst of technological change.”

Of the 1.4 million jobs expected by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics to be disrupted between now and 2026, the majority — 57% — belong to women. This is a worrying development at a time when the workplace gender gap is already widening and when women are under-represented in the areas of the labour market expected to grow most robustly in the coming years. The data show that the current narrative about the most at-risk category is misleading from a gender perspective. For example, there are nearly 164,000 at-risk female secretaries and administrative assistants, while there are just over 90,000 at-risk male assembly-line workers.

Without reskilling, on average, at-risk women have only 12 job transition options, while at-risk men have 22 options. With reskilling, women have 49 options, while men have 80 options. With reskilling, the options gap between women and men narrows. However, these transitions also present an opportunity to close the persistent gender wage gap. Combined reskilling and job transitions would lead to increased wages for 74% of all currently at-risk women, while the equivalent figure for men is 53%.

“The future of work is not predetermined. All of the scenarios we present are possible, but none is certain. It is in our hands to proactively manage the changes underway and build the kind of future that maximises opportunities for people to fulfil their potential across their entire lifetimes,” The Boston Consulting Group Global Chief Executive Officer and President Rich Lesser said.

Image credit: ©stock.adobe.com/au/VadimGuzhva

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