The forthcoming Fourth Industrial Revolution alongside other socio-economic and demographic changes will have a major impact on the labor market worldwide. More than five million jobs will be lost by 2020 as a result of digitization and associated changes in industrial production and the labor market. There will also be significant changes in the skills needed in the new environment.
These are findings from recent research by the World Economic Forum entitled The Future of Jobs which involved HR directors and other strategic top managers of major companies across nine industries in the world's 15 largest economies. In total, these economies represented 65% of the global workforce.
The study showed that 7.1 million jobs, mostly in administration and production, will be lost in the next five years. This loss will be partially compensated by the creation of 2.1 million new jobs in more specialized fields such as engineering, IT or sales.
Only five of the countries surveyed can expect positive prospects for the creation of more jobs in comparison to those that will be lost. The countries are the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Mexico, the UK, the USA and Turkey.
A lack of necessary skills will affect all industries, but it will be most prevalent in the financial sector where 43% of the most important skills needed for the job will change by 2020.
The most important skills in the global labor market in 2020 will include the ability to solve complex problems, critical thinking and creativity, followed by people management, collaboration and emotional intelligence.
The good news is that companies in all the industries surveyed consider retraining their existing employees as the most important strategy in the area of human resources planning. They also support employee rotations and other forms of mobility across the company, offer internships and look for ways to attract women and foreign talents. Recruitment of short-term or virtual workers is, on the other hand, not a priority.
The full report is available online on this page. You can also read details for each surveyed sector and part of the world.
The consequences of the Fourth Industrial Revolution on the Czech labour market were described in this article.
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