The World Economic Forum has identified a list of skills that will be significant in the evolving workplace.

According to the third edition of the Future of Work report by the World Urban Forum; 50 percent of employees will need reskilling and upskilling to survive in jobs of tomorrow owing to technology and COVID-19 pandemic disruptions.

“Automation, in tandem with the COVID-19 recession, is creating a ‘double-disruption’ scenario for workers. In addition to the current disruption from the pandemic-induced lockdowns and economic contraction, technological adoption by companies will transform tasks, jobs and skills by 2025,” the report says.

40 percent of current workers’ core skills are expected to change in the next five years, and 50% of all employees will need reskilling (up 4%)., the report says, and further states that by 2025, the time spent on current tasks at work by humans and machines will be equal.

According to the report, the window of opportunity to reskill and upskill workers has become shorter in the newly constrained labour market.

“This applies to workers who are likely to stay in their roles as well as those who risk losing their roles due to rising recession-related unemployment and can no longer expect to retrain at work”.

The amount of time that it will take to skill according to the report is six months or less, but that number is higher for those in the consumer industry and in the health and healthcare industry.

“On average, companies estimate that around 40% of workers will require reskilling of six months or less and 94% of business leaders report that they expect employees to pick up new skills on the job, a sharp uptake from 65% in 2018”.

The report notes that internal training will comprise the biggest chunk of upskilling supplemented by online learning platforms (16% of training) and external consultants (11% of training).

Top Skills in the Future of Work

The top skills and skill groups that employers see as rising in prominence in the lead up to 2025 include groups such as critical thinking and analysis as well as problem-solving, and skills in self-management such as active learning, resilience, stress tolerance and flexibility.