What you need to know about work, wages and job creation

Even before COVID-19, workers and workplaces around the world were facing the potential for unprecedented levels of disruption.

The tech revolution and the need for a green revolution have created an urgent need to increase access to the skills, tools and financial services workers need for the jobs of tomorrow.

Technology has also exacerbated gender gaps, with the largest “in roles that rely heavily on disruptive tech skills, with the share of women represented across cloud, engineering and data jobs below 30%,” as Allen Blue, Co-Founder and Vice President of Product Management for LinkedIn, wrote ahead of the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting in January.

Weeks after that meeting, COVID-19 hit – causing widespread unemployment and disrupting every employer, every employee and every industry.

The pandemic has accelerated the transition to a digital economy – and for those who are able to work from home, the need for digital skills. For those who cannot work from home – such as workers in healthcare, emergency services or the food supply chain – there have been difficult decisions about whether to put yourself and your family at risk as you continue working, if you even have a job to go back to. And COVID-19 has had a disproportionate impact on workers in the informal economy, whose incomes have dropped as much as 81% in the first month of the pandemic in some regions, as well as on women, who account for 70% of health and social workers globally.

The bottom line? Disruption to workplaces was happening well before COVID-19 – but the pandemic increased the need for large-scale, informed and collaborative action to prepare for the future of work.

“The future of work has already arrived for a large majority of the online white-collar workforce,” says the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2020 which is being published during the Jobs Reset Summit.

The report finds 84% of employers “are set to rapidly digitize working processes which includes a significant expansion of remote work – with the potential to move 44% of their workforce to operate remotely.” Microsoft and Twitter, as two examples, will allow some employees to work from home permanently even after the pandemic; many companies don't plan to return to the office until next summer at the earliest.

“To address concerns about productivity and wellbeing, about a third of all employers expect to also take steps to create a sense of community, connection and belonging among employees through digital tools and to tackle the well-being challenges posed by the shift to remote work,” the report says.

For industries where working from home isn’t an option, investments are needed to protect workers and jobs. Most urgently, this includes providing workers' with PPE, as a recent Forum survey of manufacturing companies found, and possibly rethinking workspaces entirely. Then, employers need turn to challenges like reskilling, professional development and technical adoption.

The goal? Resilience.

“Digital technologies have been essential for safety, retooling, and ramping up,” Natan Linder, CEO of Tulip, told the Forum. “And that all starts with the workforce. Workers who can adapt their operations to changing conditions—whether sudden disruptions or naturally evolving markets—are the foundation of a resilient business.”