Employers surveyed for the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2025 expected 39% of workers’ core skills to change by 2030. The report’s skills chapter says that expectation was lower than the 44% recorded in its 2023 edition, but still represented substantial disruption.
This is an employer expectation about the future. It is not a statement that 39% of jobs will disappear, nor a count of skills already replaced.
Transformation reaches beyond the tool
Automation can change the sequence of work, the knowledge required to supervise it and the kinds of exceptions employees must handle. That means buying new software and running a once-off training session may be insufficient.
The WEF report points to a greater emphasis on continuous learning, upskilling and reskilling. It also notes that expected disruption varies across industries and economies, making a single global figure an imperfect guide to any individual company.
Build learning into operating plans
Analysis: A practical transformation plan maps tasks before assigning training. If a system takes over routine processing, employees may need stronger checking, troubleshooting and customer communication skills. Managers need to know whether the technology improves quality as well as speed.
Training should therefore be connected to the workflow and reviewed as the workflow changes. Measures such as error rates, time spent resolving exceptions and staff confidence can reveal gaps that course-completion counts miss.
The report provides a useful warning against treating digital transformation as a procurement exercise. Its forecast is a prompt for planning, not a guarantee of a particular labour-market outcome in South Africa.
Source
World Economic Forum: Future of Jobs Report 2025, skills outlook.