Key Insights from the World Economic Forum Report: Trends Shaping the Global Economy

BY DAKALO NEKHUMBE
Feb 4
3 min read

The World Economic Forum (WEF) is a non-governmental organisation based in Switzerland that meets yearly in the Davos Alpine Resort. The meeting consists of the world’s political, business and financial leaders whose intent is to discuss the world’s problems and potentially find ways to solve them.

Given the rapid growth of AI, it follows that the future of jobs may change while other jobs will probably phase out. The WEF conducted a survey with 1000 global employers with over 14.1 million employees spanning 22 industry clusters and 55 economies. The results of the survey reveal how macrotrends and technology will influence industry transformation, employment, job and skills outlook over the next five years.

Let’s explore how these trends will likely affect the next five years.

The Rate of Unemployment

The COVID-19 pandemic, the cost of living skyrocketing, growing geopolitical conflicts and economic downturns have all contributed to the growth of technology driven global employment changes. At 4.9%, the global unemployment rate is at its lowest since 1991. Although the global unemployment rate is low, there are discrepancies in these numbers: in middle-income countries there has been a reduction in the unemployment rate, while low-income countries have experienced a rise from 5.1% in 2022 to 5.3% by 2024. The global unemployment rate for men and women peaked in 2020 at 6.6%, but the rate for men has since declined to 4.8%, while it remains at 5.2% for women. The global youth unemployment rate is at an elevated 13%.

3 Transformative Trends

1. Broadening Digital Access

60% of employers expect broadening digital access to be the most transformative trend to alter their businesses by 2030. Other transformative trends include advancements in technology, specifically in AI and information processing, with 86% of employers agreeing, robotics and automation (58%), energy generation, storage and distribution, with 40% of employers believing it will be a transformative trend.

These trends are expected to have disparate effects on jobs; they will propel the fastest growing and the fastest declining roles and they will drive a demand for technology related skills such as AI and big data, networks and cybersecurity and technological literacy, which happen to be the fastest growing skills.

2. Increasing Cost of Living

Increasing cost of living ranks as the second-highest transformative trend with half of the employers expecting it to change their businesses by 2030, despite an expected reduction in inflation.

3. Climate-change mitigation

Ranking as the third-most transformative trend, climate-change mitigation is the highest ranking trend that relates to the green transition. This will make roles such as renewable energy engineers, environmental engineers and electric and autonomous vehicle specialists among the 15 fastest growing jobs. The fastest growing skill in this field is environmental stewardship.

Jobs predicted to have the largest growth:

Frontline jobs that are predicted to have the biggest growth include Farmworkers, Delivery Drivers, Construction Workers, Salespersons, and Food Processing Workers. Other roles expected to have significant growth include care economy jobs such as Nursing Professionals, Social Work, Counselling Professionals and Personal Care Aides, along with Education roles such as Secondary Education Teachers and Tertiary Education Lecturers.

Technology related roles expected to grow include Big Data Specialist, Software and Application Developers. Green and energy roles expected to have great growth include Autonomous and Electric Vehicles Specialists, Environmental Engineers, and Renewable Energy Engineers.

Jobs Expected to See A Decline:

Among the roles that will potentially see a decline in numbers include Clerical and Secretarial Workers along with Cashiers and Ticket Clerks, and Administrative Assistants and Executive Secretaries. Likewise the fastest declining roles will include Postal Service Clerks, Bank Tellers and Data Entry Clerks. Employees can expect that two-fifths (39%) of their skill set will either be changed or outdated by 2025 - 2030.

The WEF's meeting offers a sneak peak into the trends and innovations that may potentially shape tomorrow. These findings inform you where to start with upskilling yourself and ensure that you remain effective in an ever-changing world.