WEF_Future_of_Jobs_2023

(^5) Workforce strategies
Faced with a labour market in transition, industries must transform to keep pace. This chapter reviews
the key barriers to transformation that organizations
face, exploring the workforce strategies and practices that organizations expect to implement to
achieve their business goals.
Organizations identify skills gaps and an inability to attract talent as the key barriers preventing industry
transformation, with 60% of surveyed companies highlighting the difficulty in bridging skills gaps
locally and 53% identifying their inability to attract talent as the main barriers to transforming their
business (Figure 5.1).
These two aspects of talent availability were identified as top barriers to business transformation
by every industry except Research, Design and Business Management Services, where
respondents ranked outdated or inflexible regulatory frameworks as the second most limiting
barrier. The inability to attract talent is particularly prevalent in the Electronics as well as Automotive
and Aerospace sectors, where it is ranked as
the most significant barrier. In addition to these barriers, over half (52.2%) of companies in the
Media, Entertainment and Sports industry highlight insufficient understanding of opportunities by
leadership as an obstacle. Company size also emerges as a factor, with SMEs 20% less likely to
identify lack of skilled talent as a barrier than large corporations.
Businesses see talent as more strategically limiting to their performance than availability of capital:
skills gaps in the local labour market were seen as a greater barrier to transformation than a shortage
of investment capital by companies in virtually every industry. The picture is more polarized at regional
and country levels. Skills gaps are reported to be most problematic in Sub-Saharan Africa, where

Barriers to transformation and workforce

strategies

5.1

1. Skills gaps in the local labour market 59.7%


2. Inability to attract talent 53.4%


3. Outdated or inflexible regulatory framework 41.9%


4. Skills gaps among the organization’s leadership 37.3%


5. Shortage of investment capital 37.2%


6. Insufficient understanding of opportunities 32.6%

FIGURE 5.1 Barriers to business transformation, 2023-2027

Source
World Economic Forum, Future of Jobs Survey 2023.

Share of organizations surveyed expecting these factors will limit the transformation of their business

May 2023 Future of Jobs Report 2023

Future of Jobs Report 2023 49