Article summary
- The World Economic Forum Future of Jobs report identifies 26 core skills that are important for job seekers and workers in 2023.
- According to WEF, these core skills reflect the human-machine frontier.
- Businesses and policymakers have a chance to embrace a future of work which fosters economic inclusion and opportunity.
The World Economic Forum (WEF) Future of Jobs report highlights some core skills that are relevant for workers in 2023. The core skills were identified as important to organizations across various industries around the world. The core skills workers will need in 2023 are as follows:
- Analytical thinking
- Creative thinking
- Resilience, flexibility and agility
- Motivation and self-awareness
- Curiosity and lifelong learning
- Technological literacy
- Dependability and attention to detail
- Empathy and active listening
- Leadership and social influence
- Quality control
- Systems thinking
- Talent management
- Service orientation and customer service
- Resource management and operations
- Artificial Intelligence and big data
- Design and user experience
- Multilingualism
- Teaching and mentoring
- Programming
- Marketing and media
- Networks and cybersecurity
- Environmental stewardship
- Manual dexterity, endurance and precision
- Global citizenship
- Reading, writing and mathematics
- Sensory-processing abilities
According to the Future of Jobs report, these core skills are on the rise in the global job market with creative thinking, analytical thinking and technological literacy, being the most in-demand skills across industries.
From the survey carried out by WEF for the report cited, Analytical Thinking is considered a core skill by more companies than any other skill and constitutes on average 9% of the core skills reported by companies surveyed. The report stated:
- “Creative thinking ranks second, ahead of three self-efficacy skills – resilience, flexibility and agility; motivation and self-awareness; and curiosity and lifelong learning – in recognition of the importance of workers’ ability to adapt to disrupted workplaces. The fourth self-efficacy skill in the Global Skills Taxonomy, dependability and attention to detail ranks seventh, behind technological literacy.”
According to WEF, macrotrends and technology are set to drive a mixed outlook for job creation and destruction in the next five years, across job categories and industries. The report also highlights the human-machine frontier and its impact on jobs of the future. A part of the report stated:
- “The Fourth Industrial Revolution has accelerated the pace of adoption of technologies and shifted the frontier between humans and machines across sectors and geographies. Technology is altering the way we work, but also changing job content, skills in need, and which jobs are being displaced.
- “Understanding how technologies will impact labour markets is crucial for determining whether people will be able to transition from declining occupations to the jobs of tomorrow.”
What you should know
The WEF report highlights the fact that the coming years represent a generational opportunity for businesses and policy-makers to embrace a future of work which fosters economic inclusion and opportunity, sets in place policies which will influence not only the rate of growth but its direction, and contribute to shaping more inclusive, sustainable and resilient economies and societies.