WEF_Future_of_Jobs_2023

they are seen to limit the transformation of 70% of companies – 11 percentage points above the global

average. Looking at country differences, only 40% of Japanese companies report being limited by

skills gaps in the workforce, while more than 80% of companies operating in the Philippines, Colombia

and Sweden expect an insufficiently skilled talent pipeline by 2027.

Workforce strategies

By a wide margin, surveyed companies report that investing in learning and training on the job

and automating processes are the most common workforce strategies which will be adopted to

deliver their organization’s business goals in the next five years (Figure 5.2).

Four in five respondents expect to implement these strategies in the next five years, which rank first

and second (81% and 80%, respectively) among workforce strategies across all industries. While

trends in automation was discussed in a technical context in Chapter 1, and with regards to jobs and

skills in Chapters 2 and 3, workforce development through training is a key theme of this chapter.

Examining the data across industries, both the Automotive and Aerospace and Advanced

Manufacturing industries are looking to accelerating automation, whereas Electronics as well as

Consumer-Goods industries will focus more on workforce development. From a regional

perspective, surveyed companies in East Asia and the Pacific are particularly likely to invest in learning

and training on the job, with all respondents in Republic of Korea, Viet Nam, and Hong Kong SAR,

Share of organizations surveyed (%)

0 20 40 60 80 100

FIGURE 5.2 Workforce strategies, 2023-2027

SourceWorld Economic Forum, Future of Jobs Survey 2023.

Reduce the current workforce significantly

Hire significantly more permanent staff

Expand the use of contract work

Invest in learning and training on the job

Accelerate the automation of processes

Tr a n s i t i o n e x i s t i n g s t a ff f ro m d e c l i n i n g t o g ro w i n g ro l e s

Outsource significant areas of work

81.2%

80.0%

45.5%

25.5%

24.3%

22.4%

12.8%

Share of organizations surveyed planning to adopt these workforce strategies

China foreseeing such investments in the coming five years. European organizations are divided.

Switzerland, Sweden and Poland have a strong preference for automation process acceleration,

whereas companies in the Czech Republic and France will prioritize investment in on-the-job

learning and training.

Within a churning labour market, just under half (46%) of the respondents expect to transition staff

from declining to growing roles. Twenty-two percent of surveyed companies expect to hire significantly

more staff and just 13% expect to reduce the current workforce significantly. This finding is in

line with the earlier discussion in this report that a majority of macrotrends and technological

developments over the next five years are expected to lead to job creation rather than job destruction.

However, the data does surface geographical disparities: in Georgia, half of surveyed companies

plan to significantly reduce their workforce in the coming five years, compared to less than one-tenth

of organizations in the United Kingdom.

Talent outlook

Given that companies express skills gaps and talent availability as their greatest barriers to

transformation and investing in training as the most promising workforce strategy alongside automation,

it is unsurprising that surveyed companies express confidence in their ability to develop their existing

workforce and moderate positivity in retaining it but are less unified regarding the outlook for talent

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