Employers expect technology to reshape work over the next five years, with artificial intelligence among the forces driving significant labor-market disruption. The World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2023 forecasts both job gains and losses, while suggesting that many companies will move workers into different roles within their organizations.
A labor market in transition
The report draws on a survey of 803 companies with more than 11.3 million employees. Employers surveyed expect 23 percent of jobs to undergo structural change over the next five years, with supply chain and transportation, media, entertainment, and sports among the fields most affected.
Across the 673 million jobs covered in the report, respondents anticipate 69 million structural job gains and 83 million losses. Together, those changes amount to a projected net decrease of 14 million jobs, or two percent.
That overall decline does not mean every company expects to simply eliminate roles. The report says most companies expect to shift jobs within their organizations, with job growth elsewhere offsetting some of the losses. The forecast therefore points to change in both the number of jobs and the kinds of work employees may be asked to do.
Technology brings gains and disruption
Employers see big data analytics, encryption, and climate management technologies as strong drivers of job growth. At the same time, agricultural technologies, digital platforms and applications, e-commerce and digital commerce, and AI are expected to bring significant disruption.
The report does not describe all technology as a net source of new jobs. It says humanoid and non-humanoid robots are expected to cost more jobs than they create. That forecast differs from the report’s generally positive outlook for the bottom-line employment impact of most technologies.
Automation is expected to advance more slowly than companies had originally anticipated. Even so, employers estimate that 42 percent of tasks will be automated by 2027. The report’s findings distinguish between tasks and jobs: changes to how work is done can alter roles without necessarily eliminating every position.
Which roles may grow or shrink?
AI and machine learning specialists rank as the fastest-growing occupations in the report, followed by roles in sustainability, business intelligence, and information security. These projections suggest employers expect demand in areas connected to emerging technologies, data, and environmental work.
The largest job losses are expected in administration and traditional roles in security, factories, and retail. The pattern reflects a labor market where some routine or established roles may contract even as specialist occupations expand.
Employee training is also a prominent part of employers’ plans. Training workers to use AI and big data ranks third among organizational priorities for the next five years, but it is the top priority for nearly half of the organizations surveyed. That gap suggests priorities vary across companies, while a substantial share place these skills at the center of workforce preparation.
AI’s effect remains unsettled
The report cautions that the effects of rapidly changing technologies, including generative AI, remain uncertain. It says it is not yet clear how those tools may change which tasks can be automated over the 2023–2027 period.
The report’s authors point to a study published by OpenAI, which concluded that large language models could already automate 15 percent of tasks. The study said that figure could rise to 50 percent when combined with applications capable of addressing known problems in systems such as ChatGPT, including factual inaccuracies. The article notes that such a change could alter the report’s estimates considerably.
Employers’ forecasts offer a picture of expected change, rather than a settled outcome. The report describes job growth in some technology-related areas alongside losses in others, and leaves open how advances in generative AI will affect automation. For workers and employers alike, adapting to shifting tasks and investing in relevant skills are central themes in that outlook.