The alarm from the World Economic Forum: “14 million jobs at risk in the next 5 years”

MILAN. 2% of global jobs are at risk due to inflation, economic slowdown and supply shortages. Digitization and energy transition offer new opportunities, but professional retraining is urgently needed. Artificial intelligence? It threatens clerical and secretarial duties, but will have an overall positive impact

Over the next five years nearly a quarter of jobs are set to undergo changes to adapt to the looming twin, digital and energy transitions. The transformation will not be painless: between now and 2027, 69 million new jobs will be created in the world, but 83 million will disappear. The balance will therefore be negative by 14 million, equal to 2% of the 673 million jobs.

The estimate is the result of a survey carried out by the World Economic Forum among a representative sample: 407 companies employing over 11.3 million workers in 45 countries. There is therefore cause for concern, also because the gloomy forecast on employment data comes from an influential and traditionally optimistic organization.

Despite Elon Musk’s fears, however, the fault will not be artificial intelligence, but inflation, slowing economic growth and supply shortages. Technological progress and the consequent digitization will certainly impose a radical change in the workplace.

Clerical and secretarial roles – such as bank tellers, cashiers and data entry clerks – are set to be progressively automated. New AI systems such as ChatGpt have also shown that they can also perform communication tasks that in the past seemed to be the preserve of humanity.

However, the impact should not be overestimated. According to the companies surveyed, about a third of tasks are automated today, just 1% more than three years ago. Furthermore, compared to the latest report on the future of work by the Wef, expectations of further automation have been revised downwards: if in 2020 it was expected that robots would have performed 47% of tasks already in 2025, today they have dropped to 42 % by 2027.

In any case, 50% of companies predict that artificial intelligence will eventually increase employment, while only 25% fear the massive replacement of employees. The same goes for the energy transition which will also create more jobs than it will destroy. In both cases, however, the positive balance will depend on the ability of governments and businesses to encourage the retraining of the workforce.

Companies report that skills gaps and an inability to attract talent are the top barriers to transformation. Six out of 10 workers will also need training before 2027, but today only half of employees are thought to have access to adequate opportunities. The countries that manage to supply them will enjoy an undoubted competitive advantage.

The fastest growing jobs are in fact linked above all to artificial intelligence, in its positive and negative sides: more data specialists will be needed to train it, more cybersecurity experts to defend against its improper use. The demand for these professionals will increase by 30% by 2027, creating competition between companies to acquire skills that are currently scarce on the labor market.

Investments in the energy transition will instead open up new opportunities for sustainability specialists, renewable energy engineers, environmental protection professionals. More than one million jobs will be created in this area over the next five years, the second largest percentage increase after that expected in the field of digital commerce. Again, this will require increased training not only for the younger generation but also for existing staff.

It is therefore not surprising that employment in education is destined to rise by 3 million, partly precisely to respond to the need for professional retraining. In absolute terms, however, the greatest growth will be recorded in the agricultural sector: in particular operators of agricultural machinery, selectors and sorters, will register an increase of 15%-30%, with a consequent increase of 4 million jobs .