WEF_Future_of_Jobs_2023

year. Following training, just under two-thirds of employers expect an ROI within a year. Another

one-third expect a ROI within six months of training. Notably, large companies tend to be more

optimistic on this measure than SMEs. On balance, companies are slightly less certain and slightly more

pessimistic about when to expect a ROI compared to results from the 2020 Future of Jobs Survey.

Availability and effectiveness of

skills training

Reported skills gaps remain wide despite accelerating investments in skills training. Surveyed

organizations report that only 41% of current workers have completed training that has effectively

bridged skills gaps – a 1% decrease on the share reported by respondents to the 2020 edition of the

Future of Jobs Survey.

Figure 5.12 summarizes the upskilling and reskilling strategies of companies responding to the Future of

Jobs Survey for 2023 to 2027. For a representative sample of 100 employees, businesses estimate that

39 will not require training before 2027; 12 will need training that will not become accessible to them

until 2027; 15 will require training which will not be accessible for the forseeable future, likely leaving

their skills gaps unclosed beyond 2027; and 18 will be upskilled in their post by 2027. Companies

expect that 16 of the representative 100 employees will be reskilled and successfully redeployed to

growing roles within their organization by 2027.

Assessments of training requirements are uniform across industries and countries, with a few

geographic exceptions, such as Egypt, where companies judge just 38% of employees to

require training. More broadly across industries,

the fraction of employees judged to have access to adequate training varies slightly, from two-

thirds of workers in Employment Services to two in five in Accommodation, Food and Leisure. The

largest variation is in companies’ expected ability to redeploy upskilled and reskilled workers to new

jobs within their organization. Just one-quarter of respondents in Egypt believe this while more than

half do in Georgia and Mexico.

These workforce development strategies will be supported by technology adoption. As outlined in

Chapter 2, more than four in five companies plan to adopt education and workforce development

technologies in the next five years – the second highest ranked technology after digital platforms

and apps among the 28 emerging technology solutions put to survey respondents in 2023.

While uptake is expected to be near ubiquitous in Employment Services and the Public Sector,

it dips nearer to three in five companies for the Real Estate, Agriculture, and Oil and Gas

industries. Almost half of companies believe that deploying education and workforce development

technologies will have a knock-on effect to create jobs – optimism which rises to 70% in geographies

such as Egypt and Pakistan. The greatest variance in opinion is found between industries. For

example, 85% of companies in Education and Training believe in the technology’s job creation

potential, but just one in three Telecommunications companies and two in five Oil and Gas companies

foresee it will lead to layoffs.

Outlook for motivation and

productivity

This section presents companies’ readiness to develop their workforce to meet business goals

A breakdown of the average training strategy for a representative group of 100 employees, calculated based on the training strategies reported by organizations surveyed

Do not require trainingbefore 2027

39%

12%

Will be upskilledin post by 2027

18%

16%

15%

Will be reskilled andredeployed by 2027

Tr a i n i n g n e e d e d b u t n o taccessible for the forseeable

not accessible until 2027Tr a i n i n g n e e d e d b u t future

FIGURE 5.12 Upskilling and reskilling outlook, 2023-2027, by workforce fraction

Source
World Economic Forum, Future of Jobs Survey 2023.

Future of Jobs Report 2023 59