January 23, 2018

Towards a Reskilling Revolution: A Future of Jobs for All

As the types of skills needed in the labour market change rapidly, individual workers will have to engage in life-long learning if they are to remain not just employable but are to achieve fulfilling and rewarding careers that allow them to maximize their employment opportunities. For companies, reskilling and upskilling strategies will be critical if they are to find the talent they need and to contribute to socially responsible approaches to the future of work. For policy-makers, reskilling and retraining the existing workforce are essential levers to fuel future economic growth, enhance societal resilience in the face of technological change and pave the way for future-ready education systems for the next generation of workers.

Towards a Reskilling Revolution: A Future of Jobs for All introduces a new approach to identifying reskilling and job transition opportunities, including those that might not be immediately apparent. Using big data analysis of online job postings, the methodology in this report demonstrates the power of a data-driven approach to discover reskilling pathways and job transition opportunities.

The methodology can be used to inform the actions of individual workers, policy-makers and companies. It can be applied to a variety of taxonomies of job requirements and sources of data.

In assessing reskilling pathways and job transition opportunities in such detail and at such scale, we aim to move the debate on the future of work to new—and practical—territory. This report is a beginning. In subsequent publications, the methodology will be extended to include additional perspectives and geographies and applied in collaboration with government and business stakeholders to support workers. We also hope it inspires similar efforts to think practically yet holistically about managing reskilling, upskilling and job transitions.

WEF FOW Reskilling Revolution