As governments look for additional renewable energy sources, jobs like renewable energy engineers and solar energy installation and systems engineers are expected to be in great demand
According to LinkedIn's additional research for this year's report, Future of Jobs Report 2023, shows that, despite sustained growth in green occupations over the previous four years, reskilling and upskilling in green skills are not keeping up with demand.
“The sustained growth of green jobs is really great news, particularly for job seekers who are facing upheaval in the labour market,” said Sue Duke, Head of Global Public Policy, LinkedIn. “But LinkedIn’s data is clear that while there’s strong demand for talent with green skills, people are not developing green skills at anywhere near a fast enough rate to meet climate targets. There is an opportunity for everyone to help turn this around. Governments must champion the green skills agenda, and businesses can and must do more to equip their employees with the skills needed to deliver genuine environmental change.”
Rise of green, education and agriculture jobs
Increased consumer awareness of sustainability issues, investments in the green transition and climate change mitigation, and industry transformation are all driving changes in the marketplace and creating new employment opportunities. More than half of respondents predicted that investments that help firms make the transition to a greener economy would have the biggest net job-creation effects. Jobs like renewable energy engineers and solar energy installation and systems engineers will be in high demand as governments seek out more renewable energy sources.
Investment will also fuel job growth in more specialised sustainability positions, such as sustainability specialists and environmental protection professionals, which are predicted to increase by 33% and 34%, respectively, and add about 1 million jobs to the economy.
According to the Future of Jobs Report 2023, 23% of jobs are predicted to change during the next five years, with an increase of 10.2% and loss of 12.3%. Employers anticipate 69 million new jobs to be created and 83 million to be deleted among the 673 million jobs matching the dataset, a net drop of 14 million jobs, or 2% of current employment, according to the projections of the 803 organisations questioned for the report.
Economic problems, including high inflation, slower economic growth, and supply shortages, pose the biggest danger, but macrotrends like the green transition, ESG standards, and localization of supply chains are the major drivers of job creation.
Growing digitization and the adoption of new technologies will shake up the labour market significantly, creating jobs on net in the long run.
“For people around the world, the past three years have been filled with upheaval and uncertainty for their lives and livelihoods, with COVID-19, geopolitical and economic shifts, and the rapid advancement of AI and other technologies now risks adding more uncertainty,” said Saadia Zahidi, Managing Director, World Economic Forum. “The good news is that there is a clear way forward to ensure resilience. Governments and businesses must invest in supporting the shift to the jobs of the future through the education, reskilling and social support structures that can ensure individuals are at the heart of the future of work.”
Increasing urgency for the reskilling revolution
There is a clear need for training and reskilling across industries, as evidenced by the fact that companies indicate that skills gaps and a lack of personnel are the main obstacles to change. Before 2027, six out of ten workers will need training, but only half of workers currently have access to sufficient training opportunities.
“Our research found that individuals without degrees can acquire critical skills in a comparable timeframe to those with degrees, highlighting the potential for innovative approaches such as industry micro-credentials and skills-based hiring to tackle skills gaps and talent shortages,” said Jeff Maggioncalda, CEO, Coursera. “However, it will require collective action from public and private sectors to provide the affordable, flexible reskilling pathways at scale that displaced workers need to transition into jobs of the future.”
The Future of Jobs Survey brings together the viewpoints of 803 organisations, which jointly employ more than 11.3 million people across 45 economies and 27 sector clusters across the globe.