In Putting Skills First: A Framework for Action, developed in consultation with leading experts from the public and private sectors, The World Economic Forum and PwC delve into “skills-first”, a term used to describe a new approach to talent management that emphasizes a person’s skills and competencies – rather than degrees, job histories or job titles – with regard to attracting, hiring, developing, and redeploying talent. By focusing directly on skills, themselves, rather than on how they have been acquired, a skills-first approach has the potential to democratize access to economic opportunities and pathways to good jobs for many more people than traditional approaches have done. Our analysis of data from a geographically diverse range of 18 economies, estimates that in total, more than 100 million people in these countries could be added to the global talent pool through a skills-first approach.
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Technology
Will generative artificial intelligence replace jobs or enhance them? That’s the question Microsoft set out to answer in its Work Trend Index report. For this report, Edelman Data x Intelligence, commissioned by Microsoft, surveyed 31,000 full-time employed or self-employed people in 31 countries and analysed trillions of Microsoft 365 productivity signals across organizations, as well as labour trends from the LinkedIn Economic Graph. Data was gathered between February 1, 2023 and March 14, 2023. Survey results indicated that jobs will change but not necessarily be replaced.
The World Economic Forum’s annual Future of Jobs Report 2023 explores how jobs and skills will evolve over the next five years. This fourth edition of the series continues the analysis of employer expectations to provide new insights on how socio-economic and technology trends will shape the workplace of the future.
This recent report from the thinktank Onward warns what differentiates this wave of automation and generative AI from previous ones in human history, which is its ability to take on creative, cognitive tasks, from writing to photography and graphic design. Once upon a time, humans could be persuaded that getting machines to do the drudge work would free them up for more interesting tasks. But AI is coming now for the dream jobs: well-paid, absorbing work done by people who love what they do and won’t let go easily. It’s coming not just for our ability to pay the rent, but for the things that make us happy.
This report from the CIPD explores the varied approaches organisations are taking to hybrid working, its wider impact, and the relationship to performance and productivity, finding that a growing number of organisations (66%) believe that it is important to provide flexible working as an option when advertising jobs and see this as a key way of attracting staff and addressing skill or labour shortages. The report also provides an overview of some of the benefits and challenges flexibility can bring, including those relating to employee wellbeing and inclusion.
The AI Index is an independent initiative at the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI), led by the AI Index Steering Committee, an interdisciplinary group of experts from across academia and industry. The annual report tracks, collates, distills, and visualizes data relating to artificial intelligence, enabling decision-makers to take meaningful action to advance AI responsibly and ethically with humans in mind. This year’s report included new analysis on foundation models, including their geopolitics and training costs, the environmental impact of AI systems, K-12 AI education, and public opinion trends in AI. The AI Index also broadened its tracking of global AI legislation from 25 countries in 2022 to 127 in 2023.
This report by the World Bank examines migration as a key development challenge and provides a comprehensive analysis of its potential to serve as a force for growth.
The report proposes an integrated framework to best manage the economic, societal and human impacts of migration, which draws on labour economics and international law. This framework is based on a “match and motive” matrix that focuses on two factors: the alignment of migrants’ skills and attributes to the needs of destination countries and the motives that underlie their movements.
This House of Commons Committee report provides an interesting assessment of the current UK labour market, including the impact of AI, automation and an ageing population.
This report from the Institute for the Future of Work provides guidance on how employers and engineers can involve workers and their representatives in the design, development and deployment of algorithmic systems so that risks are anticipated and managed, ‘good work’ is promoted, the law is complied with, innovative approaches are unlocked and trust in technology is built. The guidance is a key resource to help employers ensure that the advancement of work-related AI technologies is equitable, responsible and trustworthy.
This analysis from Goldman Sachs estimates that 300 million jobs globally could be exposed to automation from ChatGPT. The report notes that worker displacement from automation has historically been offset by the creation of new jobs, and the emergence of new occupations following technological innovations accounts for the vast majority of long-run employment growth. The research finds that the combination of significant labour cost savings, new job creation, and higher productivity for non-displaced workers raises the possibility of a productivity boom that raises economic growth substantially, with AI predicted to eventually increase annual global GDP by 7%.