The future of work is bright according to ManpowerGroup in its report The Skills Revolution, a survey of 18,000 employers across all sectors in 43 countries, published at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland.
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One in five employers (19%) expect technological disruption to increase jobs as they adapt to the future of work, and six in ten employers (64%) expect to maintain headcount if people have the right skills and are prepared to learn, apply, and adapt.
New technologies will require increasingly specialist skills for people and organizations. Plenty has been written predicting the future: more jobs, different jobs, less jobs, even no jobs. Few are telling people that they will need new skills, and they will need them more often to stay employable for jobs we may not even have heard of yet.
“In this Skills Revolution, learnability—the desire and ability to learn new skills to stay relevant and remain employable—will be the great equalizer,” said Jonas Prising, ManpowerGroup chairman and CEO. “The rise in populism and the polarization of the workforce continues to play out in front of our eyes. It’s time to take immediate action to upskill and reskill employees to address the gaps between the Haves and the Have Nots—those that have the right skills and those that are at risk of being left behind. We also need to draw in those that are not fully participating in the workforce. That’s what we mean by the emergence of a Skills Revolution.”
Key findings of the report include:
- Employers in Italy, Guatemala, and Peru are most optimistic about the impact of robots on jobs. Over one-quarter of employers in India expect to reduce headcount; Bulgaria, Slovakia, and Slovenia are close behind.
- People in IT and customer-facing roles should feel optimistic, as those employers anticipate the greatest increases in headcount.
- Rapid growth in demand is also expected across almost all industries and geographies for data analysts required to make sense of big data. In Human Resources departments, too, headcount is set to increase in the short-term as they steer companies through this period of adjustment.
Prising leads ManpowerGroup’s delegation to the WEF Annual Meeting January 17–20, 2017. This includes Mara Swan, executive vice president, Global Strategy and Talent; Stefano Scabbio, president Mediterranean and Eastern Europe; and Alain Roumilhac, president of ManpowerGroup France. ManpowerGroup will be leading and participating in a number of high-profile panel events on topics including shaping the future of education and skills, how corporate culture can attract and retain Millennials, women’s economic empowerment, technology’s impact on the workforce, the future of artificial intelligence, and shaping the future of gender equality.
Prising is the steward of the Future of Education, Gender, and Work Global System and cochairs the World Economic Forum Regional Business Council on Europe and the Digital Transformation of Industries for the Professional Services Industry. Swan is a member of the Future of Education, Gender, and Work Global System and an expert on gender parity.