LONDON: Business and governments must work closely together to drive investment, generate new markets and create high-quality jobs that will achieve the world’s social and environmental goals, two reports by the World Economic Forum have concluded.
In one, a poll of 12,000 executives by the organization shows that advances in agriculture, education and energy technologies are seen as the most strategically significant over the next decade.
The reports, “The 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,” also suggest that the growth of these markets could create an additional 76 million jobs. It calls on governments and business leaders “to double down on deploying technologies to create the markets and jobs of tomorrow.
“In the current economic and geopolitical context, a short-term and crisis-driven approach towards economic policy risks becoming permanent,” said WEF Managing Director Saadia Zahidi.
“Instead, to leap forward, leaders must align on a new growth and jobs agenda and governments must enable wider private sector interest and innovation towards these shared goals. Too many new technologies continue to serve niche markets — with the right investments and incentives they can unleash prosperity for those who need it most.”
The reports found that agricultural technologies are considered the most strategically important for economies in the next decade, followed by education and workforce learning and power storage and generation.
The findings, which are generally consistent across low and high-income economies, demonstrate a global urgency to continue on the path of economic development driven by social and environmental concerns.
A WEF analysis conducted with the consulting firm Accenture estimated that the markets of tomorrow would produce an additional 76 million jobs in the green and social sectors across 10 countries by 2030, assisting in the creation of inclusive and environmentally sustainable societies.
Tens of millions of new “social jobs” in education and healthcare would be needed for countries to hit inclusion and mobility goals, the analysis said. It added that 12 million specialized jobs would be needed for the new “green economy” to make progress on environmental objectives.
Experts warn that the three biggest “bottlenecks” for future economies would be specialized workers, poor infrastructure and sluggish public sector initiatives, and have called for more flexible joint collaborations between private and public actors.
This year’s WEF annual meeting takes place from Jan. 16 to Jan. 20 in Davos-Klosters, Switzerland.
