Here’re five trends that’ll impact labour market in 2025

The year 2025 unfolds amid ongoing transformations in global labour markets. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, rising cost of living, geopolitical conflicts, the climate emergency and economic downturns have added further turbulence to technology-driven global employment changes in the world.

Global inflation appears to have eased and is now projected to reach 3.5 percent by the end of 2025, below the average global rate of the first two decades of the 21st century. However, cost-of-living remains elevated around the world.

According to the WEF Future of Jobs Report 2025, broadening digital access, climate mitigation, geoeconomic fragmentation, economic uncertainty, increasing cost-of-living, slower economic growth, and demographic shifts are macro trends projected to impact the labour market in 2025.

The report brought together the perspective of over 1,000 leading global employers who represented more than 14 million workers across 22 industry clusters and 55 economies from around the world, to examine how these macrotrends impact jobs, skills, and the workforce transformation strategies employers plan to embark on in response, across 2025 to 2030 timeframe.

According to the World Economic Forums’ report, here are five macro trends projected to impact labour market in 2025

Broadening digital access

This is expected to be the most transformative trend, both across technology-related trends and overall, with 60 percent of employers expecting it to transform their business by 2030.

According to WEF, Advancements in technologies, particularly AI and information processing (86%); robotics and automation (58%); and energy generation, storage and distribution (41%), are also expected to be transformative. These trends are expected to have a divergent effect on jobs, driving both the fastest-growing and fastest-declining roles, and fueling demand for technology-related skills.

Increasing cost-of -living and slower economic growth

This ranks as the second most transformative trend and the top trend related to economic conditions with half of employers expecting it to transform their business by 2030, despite an anticipated reduction in global inflation.

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However, general economic slowdown, to a lesser extent, also remains top of mind and is expected to transform 42 percent of businesses. Inflation is predicted to have a mixed outlook for net job creation by 2030, while slower growth is expected to displace 1.6 million jobs globally. These trends are expected to increase the demand for creative thinking and resilience, flexibility, and agility skills.

Climate-change mitigation

This is the third-most transformative trend and the top trend related to the green transition while climate change adaptation ranks sixth with 47 percent and 41 percent of employers, respectively, expecting these trends to transform their business in the next five years.

This is driving demand for roles such as renewable energy engineers, environmental engineers and electric and autonomous vehicle specialists, all among the 15 fastest-growing jobs. Climate trends are also expected to drive an increased focus on environmental stewardship, which has entered the Future of Jobs Report’s list of top 10 fastest growing skills for the first time.

Aging and decline working-age populations, expanding working-age populations

Two demographic shifts are increasingly seen to be transforming global economies and labour markets: aging and declining working age populations – within higher income economies – and expanding working age populations within lower-income economies.

These trends drive an increase in demand for skills in talent management, teaching and mentoring, and motivation and self-awareness. Aging populations drive growth in healthcare jobs such as nursing professionals, while growing working-age populations fuel growth in education-related professions, such as higher education teachers.

Geoeconomic fragmentation and geopolitical tensions

These trends are expected to drive business model transformation in one-third (34%) of surveyed organizations in the next five years. Over one-fifth (23%) of global employers identify increased restrictions on trade and investment, as well as subsidies and industrial policies (21%), as factors shaping their operations. Almost all economies for which respondents expect these trends to be most transformative have significant trade with the United States and/or China.

Employers who expect geoeconomic trends to transform their business are also more likely to offshore and even more likely to re-shore operations. These trends are driving demand for security-related job roles and increasing demand for network and cybersecurity skills. They are also increasing demand for other human-centered skills such as resilience, flexibility and agility skills, and leadership and social influence.