Image: The Future of Jobs survey (2016), World Economic ForumĮven in industries (such as information and communication technology, or ICT) where employment demand is predicted to be positive, the WEF report flagged up the conjunction of "hard-to-recruit specialist occupations with simultaneous skills instability across many existing roles" as an approaching challenge.įortunately for current employees, investment in re-skilling emerged as the top strategic future workforce priority among the WEF's survey respondents, with 65 percent pursuing this strategy across all industries. Partially offsetting this figure, resulting in a net loss of some 5 million jobs, was the predicted creation of 2.1 million new jobs in sectors such as 'architectural and engineering' and 'computer and mathematical': The report's headline finding was that up to 7.1 million jobs could be lost in 15 major developed and emerging economies due to "redundancy, automation or disintermediation, with the greatest losses in white-collar office and administrative roles". The WEF's focus was the impact of the 'fourth industrial revolution' - a combination of developments such as artificial intelligence and machine-learning, robotics, nanotechnology, 3D printing, and genetics and biotechnology - on business models and labour markets from 2015 to 2020. Respondents were mostly chief HR officers, as well as other C-suite executives with a strategic focus on talent. In January 2016 the World Economic Forum (WEF) published The Future of Jobs, a report based on a survey of 350 of the world's largest companies, including over 150 of the Fortune Global 500. How will this scenario play out in the AI era, as the pace of change accelerates, and ever higher-level jobs are affected? Let's start with a 'macro' view, and then consider the IT industry in more detail. But new jobs - not always clearly foreseen - are usually created and, so long as the negatives are properly addressed, society as a whole generally benefits. Historically, technology transitions have seen some jobs eliminated and created negative externalities such as increased inequality or environmental degradation. But there's no doubt which way the IT wind is blowing, across businesses of all sizes. Of course, some traditional IT jobs and tasks will remain, because revolutions don't happen overnight and there will be good reasons for keeping some workloads running in on-premises data centres. ZDNet and TechRepublic looks at the dramatic effect of AI, big data, cloud computing, and automation on IT jobs, and how companies can adapt. Special report: IT Jobs in 2020: A leader's guide (free PDF)