The WEF Global Employment Report 2025 by the World Economic Forum (WEF) has unveiled critical insights into the state of global job opportunities. The report forecasts that traditional jobs will continue to dwindle while digital-related jobs will grow rapidly, either replacing traditional roles or creating new opportunities. This article summarizes and reviews the WEF global employment report and offers recommendations on how Tanzania can strategize to maximize the opportunities presented in this economic outlook.
Five Key Findings of the WEF Global Employment Report
The WEF global employment report highlights five key findings indicating that technological changes, geoeconomic fragmentation, economic uncertainties, demographic shifts, and the green transition will, either individually or collectively, be major drivers of global job markets by 2030. Below is a summary of the report:
TECHNOLOGICAL CHANGES.
A questionnaire to employers indicated that they expected expansion of digital access will be the most technological transformative trend between 2025 and 2030.
About 60% of employers anticipated their business to pivot on digital knowhow to take them to the next level. 86% of the Employers pegged on advancement in AI and information processing to impact how their businesses will be conducted.
A total of 58% of employers rooted for robotics and automation to contribute in raising efficiencies in their respective organizations.
About 41% of employers were of view energy generation, storage and distribution will be determinant of cost controls in their business ventures.
These trends are expected to have a divergent effect on jobs, driving both the fastest-growing and fastest-declining roles, and fuelling demand for technology-related skills, including AI and big data, networks and cybersecurity and technological literacy, which are anticipated to be the top three fastest growing skills.
Coursera data generated for the Future of Jobs Report 2025 reveals significant growth in demand for Generative AI training among both individual learners and enterprises.
Demand for AI skills has accelerated globally, with India and the United States leading in enrolment numbers. However, the drivers of demand differ. In the United States demand is primarily driven by individual users, whereas in India, corporate sponsorship plays a significant role in boosting GenAI training uptake.
Globally, individual learners on Coursera have focused on foundational GenAI skills and workplace studies have identified various initial ways for generative AI to enhance human skills and performance.
ECONOMIC UNCERTAINTIES.
The cost of living is expected to assume a second position in driving or discouraging job growth. Half of the employers regarded the cost of living will factor in on how their businesses are conducted.
The 42% of employers deemed global inflation will shrivel but global economic slowdown will still be an issue to be incorporated in the assessment of how their businesses will be managed.
The 2024 economic performance was marked by a global decrease in inflation and an unusually resilient economy throughout the disinflationary process.
While easing inflation and looser monetary policy offer some optimism, slow growth and political volatility keep many countries at risk of economic shocks.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) projects growth to hold steady at 3.2 percent in 2025, despite sizable downward growth revisions in a few economies, particularly low-income developing ones.
Intensifying geoeconomic tensions threaten trade and supply chains, with lower-income economies particularly vulnerable, given that essential goods like food and energy comprise a larger share of household expenditures in these countries.
Globally, governments are responding to geoeconomic challenges by imposing trade and investment restrictions, increasing subsidies, and adjusting industrial policies.
The World Trade Organization (WTO) reports that trade restrictions doubled between 2020 and 2024, with the value of import restrictions reaching nearly 10% of global imports in 2024.
These increasing protectionist measures may pose a medium-term risk to global economic growth, as they reduce opportunities for open innovation and technology transfer – factors that historically fuelled growth in emerging economies during periods of globalization.
GREEN TRANSITION.
Climate change mitigation was viewed as the third parameter that would transform how businesses were run from now upto 2030. It is also a top trend for green transition.
While climate change adaptation ranks sixth with 47% and 41% 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.
Despite an increasingly complex outlook for global climate negotiations, the green transition remains a priority for many organizations globally.
Nearly half of surveyed employers (47%) anticipate the ramping up of efforts and investments to reduce carbon emissions as a key driver for organizational transformation. Similarly, 41% expect that increased efforts and investments to adapt to climate change will drive significant organizational changes.
These two trends rank 3rd and 6th, respectively, among the drivers of business transformation identified by the Future of Jobs Survey.
These priorities have enabled green jobs to demonstrate resilience in recent years, with hiring rates in green sectors remaining relatively stable even throughout the pandemic-related disruptions of 2020.
DEMOGRAPHIC SHIFTS.
Two demographic shifts are increasingly seen to be transforming global economies and labour markets: aging and declining working age populations, predominantly in higher income economies, and expanding working age populations, predominantly in 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.
Reductions in unemployment have also lagged for women.
Since 2020, when the global unemployment rate peaked for both sexes at 6.6%, the rate for men has declined to 4.8%, while the rate for women remains elevated at 5.2%.
This trend is driven mainly by lower-middle income countries, where the female unemployment rate (of 5.5%) is 1.1% higher than the male equivalent.
High-income countries have an unemployment rate gender disparity of 0.4%; however, this disparity has existed for over a decade – rather than opening up during the post-COVID recovery.
For low income and upper-middle income countries, male and female unemployment rates remain even.
Youth unemployment rates tell another story of labour-market health.
While the global youth unemployment rate has tracked the total global unemployment rate, it remains elevated at 13%. Assessing rates of youth not in employment education or training (NEETs) highlights disparities between economies at different national income levels.
While the global NEET rate remains flat at 21.7%, it stands at just 10.1% for high-income economies, rising to 17.3% for upper-middle income ones.
The rate then jumps to 25.9% for lower-middle income economies and 27.6% for low-income ones.
These demographic shifts have a direct impact on global labour supply: currently balanced between lower-income (49%) and higher-income (51%) working-age populations.
This distribution is expected to shift by 2050, with lower-income countries projected to hold 59% of the global working-age population.
Geographies with a demographic dividend, such as India and SubSaharan African nations, will supply nearly two-thirds of new workforce entrants in the coming years.
GEOECONOMIC FRAGMENTATION.
Geoeconomic fragmentation and geopolitical tensions 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-centred skills such as resilience, flexibility and agility skills, and leadership and social influence.
This shift toward geoeconomic fragmentation carries substantial macroeconomic implications, with the IMF estimating potential global output losses from trade fragmentation ranging from 0.2% to 7% of GDP, and losses deepening in scenarios of technological decoupling.22 Emerging and developing economies are particularly vulnerable to such disruptions.
For example, Sub-Saharan Africa could see long-term welfare losses of approximately 4% of GDP due to declining global integration.
Does Tanzania stand to gain?
My perusal on Tanzanian approach to education and skills development is as depicted below:-
With the New Education and Training Policy (2023 edition) set for launch on January 31, 2025, by President Samia Suluhu Hassan, the country is said to be making significant strides to reshape its education landscape.
The reforms, coupled with government initiatives to improve access to quality education, are said to be laying a solid foundation for Tanzania to attract students from across the region in the coming years.
This was highlighted on January 13, 2025, during a regional education stakeholders’ forum held via Zoom, which brought together experts to deliberate on the future of the sector.
The country now boasts top-tier English-medium schools, a growing number of vocational training centres, and improving higher education institutions.
“We are witnessing a paradigm shift in Tanzania’s education system,” said regional education consultant Dr Edith Rugomola.
“The reforms being implemented are holistic, touching every level of education, from primary to higher education. These changes will position Tanzania as a destination of choice for quality education in the coming years.”
Meanwhile, the World Bank-supported Higher Education for Economic Transformation (HEET) project is driving major improvements in higher education infrastructure, research capabilities, and alignment with market needs.
HEET is a game-changer for Tanzania’s higher education sector,” said a University of Dar es Salaam lecturer, Dr Liberato. “We’re seeing significant investments in research and innovation, which will position Tanzanian universities as centres of excellence in Africa.”
The government is also increasing scholarships, particularly in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, to bridge gaps in critical sectors and encourage more students to pursue careers essential for national development. Decades ago,
Tanzania was seen as an importer of education services, with parents seeking better opportunities abroad.
Today, the narrative is changing.
The rise of private schools offering high-quality education, improvements in government schools, and the growing number of vocational training centres reflect the country’s commitment to educational advancement.
What Tanzania is missing
Tanzania that in the 1960s had diagnosed three enemies that were ignorance, diseases and poverty has taken a horrific, retrogressive reversal of the gains in these areas.
It is unacceptable that now eradication of these three enemies is anchored upon their utter commercialization!
Both education and health are now viewed in business aspects regarding beneficiaries as personal entities with almost no multiplier effect on society.
The venal TASAF is still deemed as the redeemer of the poor of the poorest! This type of lies ought to change for the better.
While focusing on practical training is desirable but what types of such training is equally important.
At moment Tanzania vocational training is based upon conventional skills with total disregard of the emerging digital economy where most new jobs will trend to.
Tanzania will need a better trained society to suit and augment the ever growing digital economy that is furnished with quality healthcare services to guarantee better health for her citizens.
At the moment the share of medical costs is growing disproportionately to the growth of individual incomes, weighing heavily on the quality of health of many citizens.
As the nation gets sicker and sicker without getting the proper medical care it deserves, productivity will suffer immeasurably.
What I am seeing there is no official linkage between digital skills and healthier workers on one hand against their commercialization posing the greatest threat to the sustainability of the former two variables.
Geopolitics will likely negatively impact on movement of people, goods and services with risks and threats rearranging routes in the sea, air and on the land.
As a result cost of doing business will spike over time. Disintegration of supply chain issues will snowball global inflation leading to higher lending rates.
The era of low interest rates is now behind us for some foreseeable future.
Strangely, I also see geopolitical fragmentation will encourage highly skilled migration to fill jobs citizens of the affected countries have abandoned or fled out of fear of imminent wars or enlistment in the army or similar motivation.
Tanzania’s reluctance to affirm dual citizenship for her diaspora will continue to make her lag behind in diaspora remittances in comparison to her neighbours such as Kenya and Rwanda.
These countries have made boundless strides in tapping on this income that attracts zero lending rates unlike commercial borrowing.
Tanzania will need to join modern states that have leveraged on their diaspora, not by issuing unconstitutional “special residence status” to her own overseas citizens but have restored citizenship rights to her diaspora for mutual benefits.
Depriving dual citizenship rights to our diaspora is making them feel unwanted, unloved and underappreciated. What kind of a country disregards economic opportunities presented by this diaspora class without paying through the nose?
Regrettably, Tanzania’s long term plan does not discourage irresponsible borrowing like funding education or health that are not tied to modernization of our economy.
Health sector borrowing has enriched bureaucrats at the expense of the sick people and similarly education loans have done the same to bureaucrats who loot, steal and erect shoddy infrastructure without adding value to the digital skills that we should be aggressively targeting.
Modernization of agriculture, mining, livestock development among others are increasingly growing dependent on GenAI that Tanzania is yet to fully prioritize.
Tanzania needs an overhaul of teaching curriculum from kindergarten to tertiary education level with emphasis on imparting digital skills at expense of contemporary knowledge like history, geography, and of similar nature.
Vocational skills such as secretarial and repetitive task oriented ones need to be shelved and in their place let us stiffen our digital spine where the juice of job growth is bound to be.
Sub-Saharan Africa and India are expected in this report to generate two thirds of global migrant workers but it is assumed those workers will be equipped with digital know-how.
Days of shipping overseas nannies, floor scrubbers and other menial workers are seeing their best days behind them.
GenAI is about to snap up all these jobs with repetitive tasks. Let’s forget haggling for such demeaning occupational work for we deserve better than that.
Tanzania, to be strategically positioned to take advantage of these new opportunities, needs to seriously consider that education and health are human rights, and it is morally wrong and economically disadvantageous to commercialize the essences of the quality of living.
Besides, Tanzania must accept that terminating the Higher education Board and National Insurance Board are prerequisites to mould our youths to be in a pole position to claim their share in the global job market.
Tanzania is increasingly dependent on imports to support herself, unwittingly killing her own domestic productivity capacity.
This has to dramatically change if we are to create local jobs as vocational training scales the heights and impose new job demands.
My concern is that the growth of vocational training is not coupled with realignment of industrial production capacity.
So, vocational training graduates will struggle to find employment because our thinking in this comport has been fragmented, and not holistic! Self employment also calls for “generous providence” of startup capital that Tanzania never offers to prop up startups.
Experience has shown startups have broken economic barriers, create new inventions and generate stunning wealth.
Tanzania development paradigm is overly relying on foreign investors to power our economy at the expense of local entrepreneurs.
This is a killer assumption concerning local job creation and stimulating domestic consumption which are golden keys against overdependence on exports that acts as limiting friction to power our otherwise sputtering economy.
China is learning the hard way the importance of highly internalized domestic markets to support economic growth with geopolitical hostilities attempting to blunt her national development plans.
Unless Tanzania pivots towards empowerment of her own citizens her future economic growths forecast will always impressive on paper but hollow in real life.
The Tanzanian path to economic reinvention and renaissance is a tough sell given our own government is in the consumptive mode to placate cronies leaving us with little cash to power ourselves to modernity with a swagger and conviction.
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