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Skills and talent shortages are critical challenges facing societies and economies today. The absence of relevant skills impedes business growth, hinders economic prosperity and inhibits individuals from realizing their full potential. Employers need to rethink their limited focus on using educational achievement and previous experience as proxies for the skills they require. Such an approach perpetuates the scarcity of talent and excludes many people who would otherwise be hugely valuable in the workplace. A 'skills-first' approach focuses on whether someone has the right skills and competencies for a particular role, rather than how the skills have been acquired. In our previous report, 'Putting skills first: a framework for action', [available in VOCEDplus at TD/TNC 157.57] published in 2023, we identified the enablers and actions for implementing a skills-first approach. The report found that more than 100 million people in the 18 global economies covered in our analysis would stand to directly benefit from a skills-first approach - due to being underemployed in their current job or wanting to work but having given up looking for a job due to lack of hope of success.

In this follow-up report, we identify five specific opportunities for intervention where the gains from skills-first solutions are most likely for employers and workers alike. We also highlight a diverse set of Skills First 'Lighthouses', selected by an independent expert panel. The report concludes by offering key takeaways regarding success factors in implementing skills-first approaches. The report draws on recent data from the World Economic Forum's Future of Jobs Survey and PwC's Global Workforce Hopes and Fears Survey to provide insights from businesses and workers around the world about talent trends and areas for which taking a skills-first approach can help the most.

As we navigate the complexities of the future job market, where the demand for certain skills fluctuates, embracing a dynamic approach to talent acquisition becomes indispensable. Solutions such as a skills-based hiring strategy allow businesses to stay agile and responsive to emerging needs, positioning them at the forefront of innovation. Moreover, a skills-first approach goes beyond individual and business success and can contribute to broader societal cohesion. By widening access to opportunities, this approach also becomes a powerful instrument in fostering inclusivity and diversity within the workforce. Resolving labour shortages, bridging skills gaps and equipping workers with skills for the jobs of tomorrow are key to creating resilient and productive labour markets. It is our hope that this report sparks a call to action, inspiring organizations worldwide to proactively embrace a skills-first ethos and to generate greater productivity, inclusivity and prosperity.

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As technological change accelerates, there is an urgent need for supporting education systems in managing new opportunities and risks. If managed well, technology - particularly artificial intelligence (AI) - offers a unique opportunity to help education systems enable Education 4.0 - teaching and learning approach that focuses on providing learners with the abilities, skills, attitudes and values fit for the future. Developed by a global coalition of education experts, practitioners, policy-makers and business leaders, Education 4.0 serves as a comprehensive framework that outlines key transformations needed in primary and secondary education to promote better education outcomes. AI can help broaden the reach of future-ready education systems and enhance their effectiveness in preparing students for the future. Yet, there are challenges and risks, for teachers and learners alike, that must be addressed and overcome to deliver on the promise of educational technology.

The adoption of emerging technologies in education, particularly AI, holds immense potential to revolutionize teaching methodologies, personalize learning experiences and streamline administrative processes. However, while AI can excel at tasks like presenting differentiated content and assuming many administrative duties, the complex process of facilitating learning requires more than mere dissemination of information. AI should therefore serve to enhance, not replace, the role of the teacher. By freeing educators from routine tasks, AI empowers them to focus on building relationships, understanding individual student needs and fostering motivation. This paper is the first in a series on education and AI and sets out to consider specific areas where AI may enable Education 4.0 and showcases practical examples that can serve as inspiration for global leaders and practitioners.

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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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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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The World Economic Forum launched its Preparing for the Future of Work project in 2017 to provide strategies, methodologies and tools that would allow decision-makers to create a working environment that emphasizes human skills and capabilities, empowering individuals across the world. The output of the project's first phase of work, 'Towards a reskilling revolution: a future of jobs for all' [available in VOCEDplus at TD/TNC 131.412], highlighted an innovative method to identify viable and desirable job transition pathways for disrupted workers. This second report extends previous research to assess the business case for reskilling and establish its magnitude for different stakeholders. It also outlines a roadmap for selected industries to address specific challenges and opportunities related to the transformation of their workforce.

The report is structured into two major sections. Part one, 'From business case to action', first details the business case for reskilling from a company and government perspective through an innovative quantitative cost-benefit analysis building on the model used in the first report. It then highlights priority actions to prepare for the future of work based on more than 60 qualitative, in-depth interviews and consultations with industry practitioners and experts participating in the Forum's Preparing for the Future of Work Industry Task Forces. Part two, 'Industry roadmaps', contains industry-specific roadmaps to prepare for the future of work, collected through the Forum's bi-annual 'Future of jobs' report and other complementary research efforts: technologies the industries plan to adopt; the resulting impacts on the workforce; the barriers for adoption and the top declining and emerging jobs. Moreover, based on the Forum's Reskilling Revolution model, it offers concrete information related to the transition opportunities for displaced workers and options for filling key strategic skills gaps for the companies from within the existing workforce. Lastly, it suggests key anticipatory actions to be taken by specific industries, following the overarching recommendations.

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In this report, developed in consultation with leading experts from the public and private sectors, we delve into 'skills-first', a term used to describe a new approach to talent management that emphasizes a person's skills and competencies - rather than degrees, job histories or job titles - with regard to attracting, hiring, developing, and redeploying talent. By focusing directly on skills, themselves, rather than on how they have been acquired, a skills-first approach has the potential to democratize access to economic opportunities and pathways to good jobs for many more people than traditional approaches have done. Our analysis of data from a geographically diverse range of 18 economies, estimates that in total, more than 100 million people in these countries could be added to the global talent pool through a skills-first approach.

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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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Unemployment and the skills mismatch are significant challenges in most economies today. This report argues that there is a growing role for businesses as providers of solutions, on their own and in partnership with others. The emerging research points to three key solution areas where businesses can take action to address rising unemployment and the mismatches between what businesses need and the skills of new entrants to the labour market: (1) developing employment skills - education and training systems need more input from business to better prepare talent for the needs of the labour market, both within the traditional timeframes for education as well as for lifelong learning during employment; (2) fostering entrepreneurship - entrepreneurship and self-employment are a significant source of jobs and economic growth, and are even more important in the context of rapidly changing business models, the displacement of many traditional jobs and new opportunities for doing business; and (3) connecting talent to markets - the divide between education and work as well as the growing complexity of labour markets, coupled with demographic changes, migration and urbanization, necessitate better signalling mechanisms to match current and future supply of talent with the demand for it.

The case studies in this report describe successful programs that businesses have undertaken in these three areas, most often in collaboration with other stakeholders. While most cases in this study cover some form of skills development efforts - either with youth or in the form of adult learning programmes - there are examples of partnerships that facilitate the connection of talent to markets or help support entrepreneurship. Many of the case studies touch upon more than one solution area. Most cover some form of skills development efforts - either with youth or in the form of adult learning programmes. Case studies of developing employment skills generally aim at developing function-specific skills, such as technical, vocational and academic skills, and accreditation for them, as well as employability and soft skills, such as the ability to solve problems, communicate ideas and information effectively, to be creative and to adapt to change. They also include retraining and upskilling programmes that provide skills development based on industry needs.

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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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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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