If you’re concerned about ChatGPT and artificial intelligence snapping up your job, you’re far from alone. Millions of jobs could be going away, according to a huge, new Future of Jobs report from the World Economic Forum, the nonprofit that made Davos famous. That’s the bad news, of course. The good news is that most workers are safe (in the near term).
These artificial intelligence inventions don’t rival human ingenuity—although their capacity to grow more intelligent than humans is real. Geoffrey Hinton, the scientist nicknamed “the godfather of A.I.,” recently resigned from Google and started airing his concerns about the tech’s breathtaking potential. (Did you know that humans have roughly 86 billion neurons in our skulls, but ChatGPT already has between 500 billion and 1 trillion connections? “How do we survive that?” Hinton asks.)
The WEF argues what’s becoming quite clear: Time is running out now for millions of roles, especially those trying to resist digital transformation, before they go the way of the fax machine.
By 2027, the WEF projects, nearly 70 million new jobs will be created worldwide, and 83 million will be eliminated. That constitutes a reduction in employment of 14 million jobs, or 2% of the global workforce.
In order to avoid being one of those 14 million workers stuck without work, you’ll want to take one of today’s fastest-growing roles—driven by technology, digitalization, and sustainability.
The jobs of the future (according to the WEF)
Unsurprisingly, the majority of the fastest-growing jobs are tech-related. A.I. and machine learning specialists top the WEF’s list, followed by sustainability specialists, business intelligence analysts, and information security specialists.
As the world gradually moves toward renewable energy, architects and surveyors, renewable energy engineers, and solar energy installation and system engineers will also be high-growth roles, the WEF found.
These findings dovetail with the WEF’s assertion that the top three skills that will become most important over the next five years are creative thinking, analytical thinking, and technological literacy—none of which can be automated. And employers’ desire for these skills shows the continual importance of complex problem-solving, the WEF wrote.
On the other side of the coin, the fastest-declining roles are also driven down by the advent of tech and automation. The majority of those roles are clerical, administrative, or secretarial. The WEF expects four in particular to decline the fastest: bank tellers, postal service clerks, cashiers and ticket clerks, and data entry clerks.
And even if your job isn’t on this list, you may not be immune. Nearly a quarter of all professions—even the ones that won’t grow or shrink dramatically—will change in some way, somehow, as a result of A.I. and digitization over the next five years, the WEF says.
Jobs on the rise
In collaboration with LinkedIn, the WEF tabulated the 100 roles that have grown fastest, consistently and globally, since 2018.
Sixteen of the top 100 jobs on the list called “Jobs on the Rise” are in tech and IT. Sales and customer-engagement-related jobs, however, take the cake, with 22 of the 100 roles. That suggests an increasing focus on broadening customer groups during a time of rapid technological advancement.
Also prominently featured: HR and talent acquisition roles, including a specific spot for “information technology recruitment.” Perhaps, the WEF writes, that illustrates “the increasing difficulty and importance of accessing talent in a generally strong labor market.”
One job title—workplace coordinator—has grown 39% since 2018 on LinkedIn’s job boards, which might indicate companies are struggling to ease into functional and satisfactory hybrid work arrangements.
Luckily for workers, even those in industries that the WEF predicts will shrink, with some tech upskilling may have the upper hand. Dan Shapero, chief operating officer of LinkedIn, told Fortune he doesn’t believe the power is shifting back to bosses anytime soon. “The long-term trend, I think, is pretty clear,” he said.
“Employers are still having difficulty finding the people they need, even in the current labor market,” he said. “[That’s] because the long-term trend towards your technical skills is just undeniable, and we can’t keep up with it.”
