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World Economic Forum (WEF) in its recent prognostic research on “jobs of tomorrow” revealed some vital drivers in the future employment conditions and circumstances. Transitional perspectives in the future job markets are great: i.e. from creating higher-wage and better-quality jobs to facilitating global/regional competitiveness and reducing inequalities. Present national politico-economic decisions might definitely take into account vital WEF’s digital technology’s impacts.
Background
The impact of digital technologies and numerous (as well as emerging) AI models on the workers “level of knowledge” has become a vital component of modern national and regional political economies and guidance. Recent transformative digital technologies would have both broader global impact on employment and facilitate progressive evolution of national growth patterns. The World Economic Forum’s “jobs of tomorrow” research paper has provided decision-makers with a scientific-based background in exploring the most viable digital technologies’ potentials, such as AI applications, robotics, as well as energy and renewables’ networks in reshaping the labour market.
The WEF is taking into account seven major job-related socio-economic sectors, which all together are responsible for about 89 percent of global labour market: i.e. agriculture and manufacturing, construction and trade (retail and wholesale), transport and logistics, businesses, management and healthcare. The WEF underlines that the opportunities for productivity and inclusion, as well as the risks of disruption involved on the national governance’s abilities to modernise the age-old political-economy’s patterns.
WEF’s concludes with the need for coordinated action among employers, governing bodies, existing workforce and digital technology developers to ensure the most optimal and progressive decision-making for the productive and socially responsible outcomes.
World Economic Forum. Jobs of Tomorrow: Technology and the Future of the World’s Largest Workforces. White Paper, October 2025. In: https://www.weforum.org/publications/jobs-of-tomorrow-technology-and-the-future-of-the-world-s-largest-workforces/?emailType=Forum+Stories
Main transformational directions
Presently, according to the WEF, among main drivers of the workforce’s transforming technologies are: AI models, robotics and autonomous systems, energy/renewables’ technologies, and digital networks/sensing devices.
Most vital transformations are expected in AIs deployment and other digital technologies:
=Thus, the AI applications involve such digital technologies as machine learning and data processing, using two dominating models: GenAIs and the so-called agentic AIs; the latter is the result of AIs evolution leading to satisfying needs for more specialized digital applications alongside the generative AI (GenAIs), like DeepLearning AIs and ChatGPT, which create content based on training almost all available in the world data, while agentic AI performs training actions independently and in more specialised sectors of knowledge. Thus, one can say that the GenAI “generates,” while agentic AI essentially acts as its own “agent”, i.e. using LLMs in combination with cognitive modules for the “individualized services”.
More on differences and applications in: https://www.coursera.org/articles/generative-ai-vs-agentic-ai?utm, and in: https://www.coursera.org/articles/category/ai-and-machine-learning
Since the release and rapid uptake of consumer-focused GenAI models, about 86 percent of employers expect that these apps would transform their organization’s work by 2030.
Source: Acemoglu, D. & Johnson, S. (2024). Power and Progress. Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity. – PublicAffairs. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Power-Progress-Thousand-Year-Technology-Prosperity/dp/1541702530.
Labour organizations have harnessed digital devices and machine learning to enhance workforce efficiency in numerous employment; meanwhile GenAI has become a regular analytical tool only after the release of ChatGPT at the end of 2022.
However, governance’s structures “continue to grapple” with the available digital technologies in finding most effective ways to facilitate optimal workforce’s transformation, notes WEF. Some experts believe that agentic AIs would be the most transformative component in “technological governance”, with a combination of GanAI and the AI agents. But, resonates WEF, these technologies, particularly GenAI, could carry “substantial risks related to privacy, reliability and economic value structures”.
Source and citation from: https://reports.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Jobs_of_Tomorrow_Technology_and_the_Future_of_the_Worlds_Largest_Workforces_2025.pdf
= As to the integration of networks and sensing technologies, the WEF thinks that it can create “a platform that enables greater development and effectiveness of other digital technologies, including AI, robotics and energy facilities”. With the advancement of network technologies, their impact would be different by region, states and income levels: e.g. presently, access to internet varies widely from about 90 percent in Europe to just 38 percent in Africa. The regional network technology development’s impact on workforce would depend on the level of digital accessibility and/or access for less connected areas.
These network technological developments are able to create both opportunities to enhance the workers’ potentials and creating risks associated with disruption and violation of privacy. Developments in sensing technologies would enhance the role of networks and other digital technologies, e.g. GenAI; recent advances include affordable high-resolution cameras, light detection and ranging (LiDAR), as well as the next-generation tactile sensors, which allow
interpretation of complex environments in real time.
Future of growth
Long-term perspectives in the workforce are closely connected to the national/regional growth patterns and political economy’s strategies. Some recent events have visualized certain trends in approaches to analysing the effect of such strategies and their evolution.
For example, the “future of growth” reports (already from October 2025) indicate that the global economic growth will slow in 2025 to approximately 3.2%, primarily due to such factors as higher tariffs, trade frictions energy policy uncertainties and geopolitics. Organizations like the International Monetary Fund and OECD emphasize the need for policymakers to “rebuild confidence and stability through credible, sustainable policies, structural reforms and careful management of industrial policy”.
The Future of Growth Initiative was Launched at the Annual Meeting in Davos in 2024, is a campaign to recalibrate the global conversation on growth and support decision-makers in achieving a better balance between the quantity and quality of growth. This framework introduces a multidimensional approach focusing on the quantity, balance and alignment of growth with broader global and national priorities. The framework’s data and analysis may be used by a wide range of stakeholders across policy, business, research and civil society directions to identify areas to improve, resolve and/or “synergize” optimal decision-making and solutions.
The initiative makes a novice approach to political economy by “contribute to a paradigm shift” in assessing national/regional economic growth by adopting a multidimensional approach, based on such factors as “quality, balance and alignment of growth with broader global and national priorities”. Besides, the “future of growth” framework defines the four main areas of a “qualifying performance” in transformed national political economy and balanced growth through, e.g. a) innovation, b) inclusion, c) environmental sustainability and d) systemic resilience.
It seems that the nomenclature of “qualifying factors” is far from basic political economy’s components like means of production, available resources, national culture and corporate moral, just to name a few; however, we leave it for our readers to dwell on the issue by subscribing to our magazine’s website.
More on initiative in: https://initiatives.weforum.org/future-of-growth-initiative/framework
Conclusion
The outcomes of the transformative decisions in future-oriented employment policies would depend on nations’ structural economic growth (industry and/or agro-oriented) and income’s levels. However, for various politico-economic groups both means and orientations might be different: e.g. for employers and technology providers, the actions’ properties would depend on the workforce’s quality and inherent ability to implement technological transition.
For those employed in economic sectors – including agriculture, construction, healthcare and
manufacturing (determined by industrial capacity), the “accommodation” shall be focused on the pace and volumes of investment and the speed of digital technology’s appropriation.
For example, for transport and logistics’ sectors, as well as for wholesale and retail trade workforces the changes would require effective evolution of labor market structures.
In the business and management workforce, an understanding of strategic workforce goals and
technology-enabled workforce capacity possibilities will determine the level of potential transformation.
A key component in the WEF’s “predictions” is the need for a proper assessment of all possible options in ensuring the use of modern “technological enables” in national productive labour markets sectors based on relevant adaptations of national/regional political-economy’s actions.