There is a wealth of information, but we will highlight two important topics:

• Skills outlook
• Workforce strategies

Core Skills in 2025

Soft or “power” skills dominate top 10. From the global perspective, global citizenship and multilingualism aren’t high on the list, though these remain critical for US firms.

The most critical issues for employers regarding reskilling and upskilling, as highlighted in the report, include:

1. Skill Gaps as a Barrier:
   • Skill gaps are identified as the biggest barrier to business transformation, with 63% of employers citing it as a significant challenge over 2025–2030.
2. High Demand for Reskilling:
   • Nearly 59% of the global workforce will require reskilling by 2030. Of these, 29% could be reskilled in their current roles, while 19% could be redeployed elsewhere in their organizations. However, 11% are unlikely to receive the necessary training, risking their employment prospects.
3. Focus on Upskilling:
   • Employers plan significant investment in upskilling, with 85% intending to prioritize workforce upskilling, 70% planning to hire staff with new skills, and 50% transitioning staff from declining to growing roles.
4. Key Skills to Develop:
   • Analytical thinking remains the most sought-after skill, followed by resilience, flexibility, agility, and leadership. Technology-related skills such as AI, big data, cybersecurity, and technological literacy are growing rapidly in importance.
5. Integration with Public Policies:
   • Employers welcome funding and provision of reskilling as critical public policies to boost talent availability, emphasizing collaboration between governments and businesses to bridge skills gaps.

These insights underline the importance of a structured approach to addressing skill instability and aligning reskilling programs with emerging job market trends.

Skills on the Rise, 2025-2030

Looking forward, AI and big data take the lead with power skills still occupying 5 spots out of the top 10.

Workforce Strategies

Barriers to organizational transformation, 2025-2030

From the chart above, we can see that the most critical barriers include:

1. Skill Gaps in the Labor Market:
   • The primary barrier to transformation, cited by 63% of employers, is skill gaps, which pose challenges across almost all industries and geographies.
2. Resistance to Change:
   • Organizational culture and resistance to change are identified as the second most significant barrier (46%), underlining the difficulty in aligning internal processes and mindsets to respond to macrotrends.
3. Regulatory Challenges:
   • Outdated or inflexible regulatory frameworks hinder transformation for 39% of surveyed organizations.
4. Attracting Talent:
   • Challenges in attracting talent, both at the industry and firm levels, remain notable barriers.

Improving Talent Availability

These points emphasize the need for comprehensive strategies that address both systemic barriers and emerging workforce trends.

And we’re still not aligned…

Business Practices to Boost Talent Availability: Employee vs. Employer

The findings also highlight areas of misalignment between employee and employer expectations. The divergence is most pronounced around supporting health and well-being and upskilling and reskilling, which are viewed as essential by employers, but less so by employees, who rank them 8th and 7th, respectively. By contrast, employees place higher value on working hours, which tops the list of desired policies, while employers rank this measure the eighth most effective strategy to boost talent availability; and pension policies, which rank 5th for employees – 10 places higher than for employers.