World Economic Forum — The Future of Jobs Report 2025

The World Economic Forum's Future of Jobs Report is the largest recurring employer survey on workforce transformation. The 2025 edition surveyed over 1,000 employers across 55 economies, covering more than 14 million workers. Unlike studies that model AI impact from the outside, this report captures what employers themselves are planning — which roles they intend to grow, shrink, or restructure. That makes it a leading indicator of actual hiring decisions, not just theoretical exposure.

Key Findings

• 23% of jobs will change by 2030. Employers estimate that nearly a quarter of current roles will either be created, eliminated, or fundamentally restructured within five years. This includes both job creation in new categories and job destruction in existing ones, with net displacement expected in the near term.
• Data entry and bookkeeping are declining fastest. Among specific role categories, data entry clerks, administrative secretaries, and bookkeeping/payroll clerks top the list of roles employers plan to reduce. These are roles characterized by routine, structured tasks that map directly onto current AI and automation capabilities.
• AI/ML specialists and data analysts are among the fastest-growing roles. On the creation side, employers are hiring most aggressively for AI and machine learning specialists, data analysts, information security specialists, and sustainability-related roles. The demand signal for AI-adjacent skills is stronger than in any previous edition of the report.
• The biggest skills gap is AI and big data. When asked what skills their workforce most urgently needs, employers ranked AI and big data literacy first, followed by analytical thinking and creative thinking. Technology literacy has overtaken traditional business skills as the top employer priority.
• Employer investment in reskilling is increasing but uneven. 85% of surveyed employers plan to invest in workforce reskilling by 2030. However, the depth and quality of these investments vary dramatically by region and company size. Large multinationals commit significantly more per employee than small and medium enterprises.

What This Means for Your Career

The 23% figure is a planning number, not a forecast — it reflects what employers intend to do, which makes it more concrete than academic projections. If roughly one in four roles will change within five years, the odds that your specific role remains completely untouched are not in your favor. Even if your job title survives, the tasks within it are likely to shift.

The fastest-declining roles offer a clear signal. If your current work involves primarily data entry, routine document processing, bookkeeping, or administrative coordination, the employers in this survey are actively planning to reduce headcount in those areas. The timeline is not decades — it is the next three to five years. This does not mean every data entry clerk will be unemployed by 2028, but it does mean the job market for these roles will tighten significantly.

On the growth side, the demand for AI and data skills is not limited to technical roles. Employers are looking for AI literacy across functions — marketing, operations, finance, HR. The survey indicates that "can work effectively with AI tools" is becoming a baseline expectation rather than a specialized skill. If you can demonstrate practical AI fluency in your domain, you are positioning yourself on the growth side of the labor market shift.

Data Highlights

• 1,000+ employers surveyed across 55 economies
• 14 million+ workers represented in the survey sample
• 23% of current jobs expected to change by 2030
• AI and big data ranked as the #1 skills gap by employers
• 85% of employers plan to invest in workforce reskilling
• Data entry clerks identified as the single fastest-declining role category

Methodology

The Future of Jobs Report 2025 is based on a survey of over 1,000 employers representing more than 14 million workers across 55 economies worldwide. The survey was conducted in partnership with national employer organizations and covers 27 industry clusters. Employers provided estimates for expected headcount changes by role category, identified emerging and declining skills, and reported their workforce investment plans for the 2025-2030 period. Results are weighted by company size and regional representation. The report supplements survey data with labor market statistics from national sources and cross-references findings against previous editions of the report (published biennially since 2016) to identify trend acceleration or deceleration.