10 most in-demand job skills now, per World Economic Forum
3 min read . Updated: 08 May 2023, 08:46 PM IST
PremiumAccording to Future of Jobs report by WEF, surveyed companies have shown cognitive skills to be growing in importance most quickly, reflecting the increasing importance of complex problem-solving in the workplace.
The World Economic Forum (WEF) has recently released the ‘Future of Jobs Report 2023’. The report primarily states that around a quarter of jobs are set to change by 2027. The survey is based on input from some 800 companies employing more than 11 million workers and uses a dataset of 673 million jobs.
In the report it was revealed that the skills with the highest share of companies reporting growing demand include analytical and creative thinking, followed by technological literacy, curiosity and lifelong learning, resilience and flexibility, systems thinking and AI and big data.
Surveyed companies have shown cognitive skills to be growing in importance most quickly, reflecting the increasing importance of complex problem-solving in the workplace.
According to the WEF report, skills less in demand include global citizenship, sensory processing abilities and manual dexterity, endurance and precision. The report revealed that the largest absolute gains in jobs will come from education (3 million jobs) and agriculture (4 million jobs), driven in part by demographics and in part by applications of new technologies in these fields.
Core job skills in demand in 2023
In this list while cognitive skills took the top two spot, self-efficacy, working with others, and technology skills took up the rest of the seven spots. Here's a detailed look:
-Analytical thinking- Constitutes on average 9% of the core skills reported by companies
-Creative thinking- Accounts for an average of 7% of the core skills reported by companies
-Resilience, flexibility and agility- With an estimated average of 6%, this Self-efficacy skill took up the third spot
-Motivation and self-awareness-Like resilience, flexibility and agility this too logged an estimated 6% in average skill set graph
-Curiosity and lifelong learning-Another self-efficacy skill, curiosity anf lifelong learning accounted for 6% in average skill set graph
-Technological literacy- A little over 40% companies surveyed noted that technological literacy is 5% of the skill set sought in employees
-Dependability and attention to detail- In a similar statistic, companies also attested that dependability and attention to detail is an estimated 5% average skill set demanded
-Empathy and active listening- Less than 5% estimated average core skill set reported by companies was empathy and active listening
-Leadership and social influence- This core working with others skill set recorded an estimated average composition of little over 4% among workers in organizations surveyed
-Quality control- The only management skill on this list, constituting 5% of worker skill sets despite ranking tenth, quality control is an example of a skill particularly important to a limited cohort of businesses
Job skills demand on the rise
-Analytical Thinking
-Creative Thinking
-Technological literacy
-Curiosity and lifelong learning
-Resilience, Flexibility, Agility
-Systems Thinking
-AI and Big Data
-Motivation and Awareness
-Talent Management
-Service Orientation and Customer Service
Further the report noted that management skills, engagement skills, technology skills, ethics and physical abilities are generally considered to be less important than cognition, self-efficacy, and working with others.
Technology and digitalisation is both the driver of job creation and of destruction, a summary of the report said.
"Advancing technology adoption and increasing digitization will cause significant labour market churn," it said.
The fastest declining roles will be secretarial and clerical roles such as bank tellers and cashiers which can be automated while demand for AI machine learning specialists and cybersecurity experts is expected to grow significantly, it said.