Investment, Innovation in agri, education, energy to drive jobs: WEF

Technologies in agriculture, education and energy are the 'most strategically important' for economies and societies over the next decade to drive jobs, growth and markets of tomorrow, a survey said on Thursday.

Citing the survey of 12,000 global executives, the World Economic Forum (WEF) also said there is an unmet need for 76 million new jobs in green and social sectors.

The research found that agritech, edtech and energy-related technologies are seen by businesses as the most strategically important over the next 10 years in over 120 economies.

''It also finds that 76 million additional jobs are needed by 2030 in green and social sectors, including agriculture, education, health and energy,'' the WEF said.

Two reports from the WEF, 'Markets of Tomorrow Report 2023: Turning Technologies into New Sources of Global Growth' and 'Jobs of Tomorrow: Social and Green Jobs for Building Inclusive and Sustainable Economies', called on government and business leaders to double down on deploying technologies to create the markets and jobs of tomorrow.

The 'Jobs of Tomorrow' analysis was conducted in collaboration with Accenture, and it found an additional 76 million jobs in green and social sectors are needed by 2030 across 10 economies alone.

These are Australia, Brazil, China, Germany, India, Japan, South Africa, Spain, the United Kingdom and the US.

Social jobs, defined as occupations within education, healthcare and care, represent 11 per cent of the total workforce in the 10 assessed economies.

But the report found that countries will need to increase the number of social jobs by 37 per cent or 64 million to make progress on inclusion and social mobility goals.

Occupations with the greatest unmet need are personal care workers in health services (18 million), childcare workers, teacher aides and early childhood teachers (12 million) and primary and secondary education teachers (9 million).

Currently, Green jobs represent just 1 per cent of the surveyed workforces and an additional 12 million green jobs are needed to make progress on environmental objectives, representing a 66 per cent increase on current numbers.

Green jobs with the greatest unmet need include agricultural, forestry and fishery workers (11 million), environmental construction roles (80,000), and environmental, civil and chemical engineers (70,000), with South Africa, China, the United Kingdom and Brazil experiencing the greatest shortfalls.

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