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A nation's human capital endowment - the knowledge and skills embodied in individuals that enable them to create economic value - can be a more important determinant of its long-term success than virtually any other resource. This resource must be invested in and leveraged efficiently in order for it to generate returns - for the individuals involved as well as an economy as a whole. The Human Capital Index seeks to serve as a tool for capturing the complexity of education, employment and workforce dynamics so that various stakeholders are able to make better-informed decisions. Last year's edition explored the factors contributing to the development of an educated, productive and healthy workforce. This year's edition deepens the analysis by focusing on a number of key issues that can support better design of education policy and future workforce planning.

The report ranks 130 countries on how well they are developing and deploying their talent. It aims to combine public international statistics, qualitative perception data and big data metrics to provide a comprehensive picture of the situation today as well as the opportunities for the future. The index takes a life-course approach to human capital, evaluating the levels of education, skills and employment available to people in five distinct age groups, starting from under 15 years to over 65 years. The aim is to assess the outcome of past and present investments in human capital and offer insight into what a country's talent base looks like today and how it is likely to evolve into the future. This year's edition also explores new data sources to reveal fresh insights on skills diversity, the gig economy and talent mobility. Investing in human capital goes beyond an economic necessity: it is the basis for all individuals to live up to their full potential.

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Ensuring the full development and appropriate deployment of half of the world's total talent pool has a vast bearing on the growth, competitiveness and future-readiness of economies and businesses worldwide. The Global Gender Gap Index was first introduced by the World Economic Forum in 2006 as a framework for capturing the magnitude of gender-based disparities and tracking their progress. The Index examines the gap between men and women in four fundamental categories (subindexes): (1) Economic participation and opportunity; (2) Educational attainment; (3) Health and survival; and (4) Political empowerment. Gender parity is fundamental to whether and how economies and societies thrive. The Global Gender Gap Report benchmarks 149 countries on their progress towards gender parity across four thematic dimensions: Economic Participation and Opportunity, Educational Attainment, Health and Survival, and Political Empowerment. In addition, this 2018 edition studies skills gender gaps related to Artificial Intelligence (AI).

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A significant volume of research on the theme of the future of work has emerged since the World Economic Forum published its initial report on the subject, 'The future of jobs: employment, skills and workforce strategy for the Fourth Industrial Revolution', early in 2016 [available in VOCEDplus at TD/TNC 123.601]. Latest research from the World Economic Forum forecasts that by 2025, machines will perform more current work tasks than humans, compared to 71 per cent being performed by humans today. The rapid evolution of machines and algorithms in the workplace could create 133 million new roles in place of 75 million that will be displaced between now and 2022. Urgent challenges include providing reskilling opportunities, enabling remote work and building safety nets to protect at-risk workers and communities.

This report is based on a survey of chief human resources officers and top strategy executives from companies across 12 industries and 20 developed and emerging economies (which collectively account for 70 per cent of global GDP), the report finds that 54 per cent of employees of large companies would need significant re- and up-skilling in order to fully harness the growth opportunities offered by the Fourth Industrial Revolution. At the same time, just over half of the companies surveyed said they planned to reskill only those employees that are in key roles while only one third planned to reskill at-risk workers. This report is an attempt to understand the potential of new technologies to disrupt and create jobs. It also seeks to provide guidance on how to improve the quality and productivity of the current work being done by humans and how to prepare people for emerging roles.

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The key for the future of any country and any institution lies in the talent, skills and capabilities of its people. With talent shortages projected to become more severe in much of the developed and developing world, it will be imperative to turn our attention to how these shortages can be met in the short term and prevented in the long term. For the individual, as well as for societies and economies as a whole, investing in human capital is critical; even more so in the context of shifting population dynamics and limited resources. Through this report, the World Economic Forum seeks to provide a holistic, long term overview on how well countries are leveraging their human capital and establishing workforces that are prepared for the demands of competitive economies. By providing a comprehensive framework for benchmarking human capital, the report highlights countries that are role models in investing in the health, education and talent of their people and providing an environment where these investments translate into productivity for the economy. In addition, through extensive additional information on the 122 countries covered, the report seeks to provide a fuller picture of the context within which human capital is operating in any particular country.

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How nations develop their human capital can be a more important determinant of their long-term success than virtually any other factor. By 'human capital' we mean the knowledge and skills people possess that enable them to create value in the global economic system. Human capital is not defined solely through formal education and skilling. It can be enhanced over time, growing through use - and depreciating through lack of use - across people's lifetimes. The Global Human Capital Index featured in this report thus treats human capital as a dynamic rather than fixed concept. The Global Human Capital Index 2017 ranks 130 countries on how well they are developing their human capital on a scale from 0 (worst) to 100 (best) across four thematic dimensions - capacity, deployment, development and know-how - and five distinct age groups or generations - 0-14 years; 15-24 years; 25-54 years; 55-64 years; and 65 years and over - to capture the full human capital potential profile of a country. It can be used as a tool to assess progress within countries and points to opportunities for cross-country learning and exchange.

The report's key findings include: On average, the world has developed only 62 per cent of its human capital as measured by this Index. Or, conversely, nations are neglecting or wasting, on average, 38 per cent of their talent. Across the Index, there are only 25 nations that have tapped 70 per cent of their people's human capital or more; The top ten of this year's edition of the Human Capital Index is headed by smaller European countries - Norway (1), Finland (2), Switzerland (3) - as well as large economies such as the United States (4) and Germany (6); The leaders of the Index are generally economies with a longstanding commitment to their people's educational attainment and that have deployed a broad share of their workforce in skill-intensive occupations across a broad range of sectors. Unsurprisingly, they are mainly today's high-income economies; At a regional level, the human capital development gap is smallest in North America, followed by Western Europe, Eastern Europe and Central Asia, East Asia and the Pacific, Latin America, and Middle East and North Africa. The gap is largest in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa.

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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 achieve fulfilling and rewarding careers. 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.

Yet while there has been much forecasting on transformations in labour markets, few practical approaches exist to identifying reskilling and job transition opportunities. This report provides a tool that will help individual workers, companies, and governments to prioritize their actions and investments. Using big data analytics 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 applied to a variety of taxonomies of job requirements and sources of data.

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Making progress on competitiveness, the factors and institutions that determine productivity and future prosperity, requires multistakeholder engagement and coordinated efforts with government and between the public and private sectors. The second phase of the Competitiveness Lab seeks to accelerate structured public-private dialogue and competitiveness agendas to close the main gaps identified in the Global Competitiveness Report.

The second phase of the Lab builds on the diagnosis of the Global Competitiveness Report and the Insight Report with policy recommendations to close the main gap - innovation - to convene a high level Steering Committee and Working Groups and facilitate work towards closing the gap. This report presents the methodology and outcomes of the pilot lab in Colombia and the summary of the conclusion in Mexico, which is presented in a separate report. Both countries identified the need for new public-private financing mechanisms as the most pressing issue and propose a set of recommendations for action. The model is replicable and can help guide countries in their efforts to leverage the Global Competitiveness Report as a public-policy tool.

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This report from the World Economic Forum, in collaboration with PwC, makes the economic case for providing employees with learning and development opportunities to expand their horizons while minimizing skills gaps. At the heart of the report is a realization that economies are no longer delivering what people need and require systemic reform; and creating more inclusive and sustainable economies and societies where no one is left behind begins with giving all people opportunities to build the skills they will need to fully participate in the future workplace. Chapter 1 looks at how a new upskilling narrative has evolved and why [Coronavirus Disease] COVID-19 has accelerated the need for business, government and the education sector to take action to ensure people are prepared for the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Chapter 2 discusses the impact of upskilling on economic growth and shows how investing in the development of skills across geographies and sectors can reshape economies. Chapter 3 describes the wider social effects of upskilling beyond productivity and investigates how employability can create more inclusive economies. This chapter also highlights new economic thinking about the creation of good jobs and the need to adopt more inclusive economic models.

Key findings are that: (1) wide-scale investment in upskilling has the potential to boost [gross domestic product] GDP by $6.5 trillion by 2030; (2) regions and economies with the biggest gains are those in which the skills gaps are larger and the potential is greatest to improve productivity through skills augmentation aligned with new technology; (3) progress on reversing polarization and reshaping the workforce is feasible; (4) upskilling could lead to the net creation of 5.3 million new jobs by 2030; and (5) COVID-19 has accelerated the need for action. The report closes with a call to action and roadmap of how businesses, governments and the education sector can collaborate in ecosystems that put people and their development centre stage. Finally, an appendix provides a detailed discussion of PwC's global Computable General Equilibrium model and the report's methodology.

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The past three years have been shaped by a challenging combination of health, economic and geopolitical volatility combined with growing social and environmental pressures. These accelerating transformations have and continue to reconfigure the world's labour markets and shape the demand for jobs and skills of tomorrow, driving divergent economic trajectories within and across countries, in developing and developed economies alike. The Fourth Industrial Revolution, changing worker and consumer expectations, and the urgent need for a green and energy transition are also reconfiguring the sectoral composition of the workforce and stimulating demand for new occupations and skills. Global supply chains must also quickly adapt to the challenges of increasing geopolitical volatility, economic uncertainty, rising inflation and increasing commodity prices.

Like previous editions, the 2023 report offers insights into these transformations and unpacks how businesses are expecting to navigate these labour-market changes from 2023 to 2027, leveraging a unique cross-sectoral and global survey of Chief Human Resources, Chief Learning Officers and Chief Executive Officers of leading global employers and their peers. This report is structured as follows: Chapter 1 reviews the global labour-market landscape at the beginning of 2023. Chapter 2 explores how key macrotrends are expected to transform this landscape over the 2023-2027 period. Chapters 3 and 4 then discuss the resulting global outlooks for jobs and skills over the 2023-2027 period. Chapter 5 reviews emerging workforce and talent strategies in response to these trends.

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The World Economic Forum launched the Competitiveness Lab initiative in 2013, with the objective of organizing an informed multi-stakeholder process to inform and advance the competitiveness agenda of a country or region. The Competitiveness Lab - Latin America focuses on two specific and interrelated competitiveness challenges at the regional level, namely the skills and innovation gap. This report argues that supporting a transition towards higher productivity levels requires improving the functioning of institutions; the quality of infrastructure; the allocation of production factors; and strengthening the region's skills, technology and innovation base. The report analyses the current situation and challenges in Latin America's skills and innovation landscape and recommends ways to address these challenges.

The Competitiveness Lab Steering Board developed a set of 10 recommendations to help the region's leaders begin bridging the identified gaps in skills and innovation. These recommendations are presented in the report along with the full analysis of Latin America's current state and challenges in competitiveness, skills, and innovation, based on a series of discussions between the World Economic forum and the Competitiveness Lab Steering Board, as well as a review of the existing literature and research on these topics.

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