Skills are essential for competitiveness and employability: structural changes such as globalization and technological progress are requiring ever higher skills and even more relevant to demands of the labor market in order to guarantee productivity growth and the availability of quality jobs.
The relationship between training and employment is an issue which, although it is always part of the social structure of any country, acquires particular relevance in times of crisis, such as the one we are currently experiencing. It is very important, in order to have as many opportunities as possible in the labor market, to find your niche. In fact, in the post Covid-19 scenario, innovative and technological ideas will undoubtedly be rewarded, even if they won’t be the only ones.
The global pandemic has caused an economic crisis that we have never experienced before and has shown that we need to make extensive changes to our socio-economic system, necessarily moving towards a more resilient, fair, inclusive, innovative, creative and sustainable economy, which best suits to the future challenges and opportunities. Therefore, by analyzing “The future of Jobs” report, published by the World Economic Forum, in 5 years half of the entire workforce will have to undertake a process of adaption of their skills in order to be able to remain competitive in a market that is undergoing an unprecedented transformation.
Fortunately, the same technological revolution that is radically changing the work setting hides on its inside the key to give rise to new forms of employment and to provide us with new skills to acquire.
In this regard, the words of the president and founder of the Forum, Professor Klaus Schwab, are encouraging: “The wealth of technological innovation that defines our current era can be exploited to release human potential”. It is estimated that by 2025, as a result of the increasingly human-machine interrelation, 85 million jobs will be lost, but at the same time, 97 million new jobs structured to better adapt to the new division of labor between beings humans, machines and software will be created.
Finally, there are real trends that have accelerated their normal development process due to the pandemic. One of these is the Great Resignation, or the phenomenon of mass resignation. In fact, an increasing number of people are voluntarily leaving their jobs.
In fact, a generalized desire has emerged among the workers to regain possession of the time to devote to themselves and to the family, to sport, to raise their quality of life and, above all, to look at work in a different way to defend the desired work-life balance, the perfect balance between work life and free time. In this regard, according to recent research by Mc McKinsey & Company, a
multinational strategic consultancy, 40% of workers worldwide want to change their position in the near future. Among employers, 53% said they have a voluntary turnover compared to previous years and 64% of them expect the problem to get worse in the future.
Among the soft skills we all know, the first ever that creates harmony within a team is Resilience.
The most requested skills in the post Covid-19 reality will remain the technical and organizational ones. In fact, training is always crucial in order to keep up with the times. The technical skills and above all the IT profiles will be those to be most requested and rewarded in the labor market.
Digital has become more and more important and we can notice it even in websites, such as LinkedIn, where professionals in the sector are in great demand. Digital skills will be the most rewarded and will be the must of 2021.
As we have seen, Italy needs digitalization and, therefore, the stars of the future labor market will have to guarantee to possess those skills, not only for the issue linked to smart working, but for facilitating technological innovation.
The most requested skills in the future job market:
The conclusion therefore arises that it will become crucial in the near future to develop new skills, by virtue of the growing need on the part of workers to interface with technological systems and digital platforms. The WEF forecasts show that the share of basic skills destined to change will be 40%, so much so that, as anticipated, 50% of all workers will have to retrain.
But what are the 10 most important skills identified by the Forum for tomorrow’s work?
Critical thinking (skill 1) and problem solving (skill 3) have remained constant in the ranking of the first skills since the first edition of the Forum in 2016. On the other hand, this year, new emerging skills deriving from self-management such as active learning (skill 2), resilience, tolerance to stress and flexibility (skill 9) are making their appearance. Leadership (skill 6) assumes a central and fundamental role, precisely to guide and influence the innovation and change that await us in the coming years.
The demand for the acquisition of new skills has therefore bifurcated, flanking the omnipresent demand for digital skills (skills 7 and 8), such as data analysis, computer use and information technology, a new sector with a strong imprint of individual enhancement and growth (skills 4, 5 and 10).
Curious to learn more about employabiliy? Read the 2022 RBS Employment Report