[Greg Felder] Hello, everyone, and welcome to “The Future of Jobs.” You ask, we answer. Here on World Bank Live and coming to you from Washington, DC. My name is Greg Felder, and I have the pleasure of being your host today. So what are the jobs of the future? And what skills do young people need to succeed in a fast-changing world? Across regions, technology is reshaping how we work. So are we ready for AI and automation? The sustainable transition is creating millions of new jobs, but how can people access those jobs? And as trade and economy start to shift, how do we prepare for new opportunities? Lucky for us, we have two experts here to answer your questions, share inspiring stories, and help you navigate your career journey. And as always, we want you in on the conversation. You can start now by taking the quick poll on worldbank.org/live. There we’re asking, what will shape the future of work the most? Do you think it’s AI and automation, the sustainable transition, maybe global trade, or education and training? Feel free to drop your questions and comments in the chat. Before we get to questions from the audience, I want to start by dipping into a few numbers. 1.2 billion people in emerging economies will reach the working age over the next decade. At the same time, only about 420 million jobs are expected to be generated. Now, of course, the forecast isn’t destiny, but clearly, that’s a big shortfall. At the same time, technology and automation are transforming workplaces. Research shows about 1.1 billion workers will need to be retrained in the next decade. That’s due to automation, but also climate action, digitalization, and evolving labor market needs. So clearly, we’re in a challenging and changing world, but especially for the young people entering the workforce. So to help us unpack all of these issues, we have two World Bank Group experts who have joined us. Henriette [Kolb], Frederico [Gil Sander], thanks for joining.
[Henriette Kolb] Great to be here. Thank you.
[Greg Felder] Thank you. Henriette Kolb is a Global Manager for Sustainable Infrastructure Advisory at IFC. So her team works with businesses and governments to make infrastructure projects more inclusive and create opportunities for more people to access good jobs. Frederico Gil Sander is a Practice Manager for the Jobs and Growth Unit in the World Bank’s Economic Policy Global Department. So he works with countries to design policies and programs that will help grow their economies and connect people with quality jobs. Again, welcome to you both. Before we get to questions from the audience, I actually have a question of my own I’d like to get started with. Since we’re on the topic of jobs, I’d love to know what was your first job and maybe some lessons that it taught you. Henriette, I’ll start with you.
[Henriette Kolb] Yeah, happy to answer. It takes me all the way back when I worked in a hospital as a cleaner. And this was a job that was temporary that helped me finance my university studies. What it taught me was that no matter where you sit on the job ladder run, you can generate an impact. What I mean that is doctors and nurses were fabulous but too busy to talk to patients about anything but their medical results. Here, I was sweeping the floor, cleaning the windows, and I had the time to listen and to learn more about what the patients were worried about, their concerns, and their families. And so, that showed to me when I left that job, I got lots of cards and thank yous that no matter what you’re doing, you can generate impact.
[Greg Felder] Thank you for sharing that. And it shows no job is too small, and there’s lessons to be learned. Frederico, what about you? What was your first job?
[Frederico Gil Sander] Thank you for that question. So my first job was actually at the dining hall of a Scout camp when I was in high school. And I think what that taught me is the importance that everyone has a role in a lot of jobs that we have. So we have all the different stations of people cleaning the table, sweeping the floors, washing the dishes, but it took everyone to do their jobs well to get everything clean and done.
[Greg Felder] Wow. So two World Bank Group experts that came from humble beginnings. Thank you so much for sharing those stories. Clearly, we’re in good hands and ready to dive into some of the questions were submitted by people around the world. Let’s start with our first video question.
[Marie Rose Farah] Hi, I am Marie Rose Farah, an environmental consultant in New York City originally from Lebanon. I’ve devoted my career to sustainability initiatives in developing countries. My question for today is, how can policymakers address the skill gap to prepare workers to kickstart their career, especially in sectors affected by automation and artificial intelligence? Thank you.
[Greg Felder] Thank you, Marie Rose, for that question. She touched on policy to address the skills gap, and I know policy is a part of your expertise. Frederico, do you want to take that one?
[Frederico Gil Sander] Thank you very much. That’s a really good question. I would focus on three things. First is closing the digital gap in terms of infrastructure. In a lot of developing countries, not everyone has access to the basic digital infrastructure that they need to access, artificial intelligence and all of these great new innovations. Two is a digital skills gap. We have some research that shows that less than 10% of young people in developing countries have access to digital skills compared to more than a third in developed countries. Closing that gap is going to be very important. Third is investing in really high-quality basic education where children learn not only the technical skills, but also behaviors and human skills.
[Greg Felder] Thank you for that, Frederico. Especially an important point around education. Henriette, I want to follow up with a question we received from Teervassen in Mauritius, who says, “I’m a bit doubtful whether developing new technologies are really helping the economy or doing the contrary for developing countries.” So interesting question there from Teervassen. What is your take on this?
[Henriette Kolb] I think, Teervassen, you’re absolutely right to be doubtful. We have seen great use cases of technology where we actually see, for example, financial inclusion expand, take mobile banking or fintech. And the latest fintech report of the World Bank actually shows that that has allowed us to lower transaction costs, lower transport costs, and serve rural communities in particular, but also underserved communities. So, I claim that as a positive. The second one is e-commerce platform. We’ve worked a lot with Jumia, Lazada, there’s many others, and it really allows entrepreneurs, no matter how small, to expand their business and to ideally grow, obviously, their employee base. And so, these are just two. I could add education and health, and you just mentioned education. But we got to be careful to avoid three things from happening. Job displacement, and I think what you just outlined really addresses the avoidance of job displacement. The second one is data dependency and exploitation. And the third one is deepening the digital divide. So, technology can play an incredibly helpful role if three things are in place: education, right regulation and policy, and third, and to me, that is most important, that it serves local needs and empowers powers, communities, and not elites.
[Greg Felder] Thank you. Very good points. And for now, let’s move on to our next question.
[Jephte Francois] Hi, my name is Jephte Francois from Haiti. I currently work as an operation officer for a nonprofit organization. For many youth and Haiti, the biggest challenge is that most jobs are in the informal sector, which means a lack of stability and almost no social protection. So, my question is that: what work can governments, private sector, and international partners plays in formalizing jobs while still ensuring social protection for the vulnerable workers?
[Greg Felder] Thanks for the question. Frederico, what’s your take on this?
[Frederico Gil Sander] Thank you very much. Another very good question. I think that what experience tells us is that when the private sector grows and when an economy is producing dynamic firms that create a lot of jobs, many of those will tend to be in the formal sector. To achieve that, we focus on, first of all, creating the basic infrastructure, both physical as well as the human capital. We talked already a lot about education. Two, having the right enabling environment that will allow firms to actually join the formal sector and to expand and hire more workers. But three, critically, and this is why we’re working very closely with IFC these days, to have the private sector financing that comes to it. When you have growing economies, that also allows the government to raise more revenues and provide better social protection for the populations.
[Greg Felder] Thanks for that, Frederico. And next, we’ll move on to our next video question.
[Rebecca Julienne] Hello, everyone. I am Rebecca Julienne from the Seychelles Islands, currently serving as a second secretary at the Foreign Affairs Department. Seychelles, like all small island developing states, faces challenges ranging from limited economic diversification to reliance on a few sectors such as tourism and fisheries and extreme vulnerability to external shocks. We are building our resilience through the blue economy and other adaptive measures. However, small population sizes and limited resources make this very challenging. Given this, my question is, how can the World Bank help countries like mine create job opportunities for young people, ensuring they gain the skills and access they need to thrive in the jobs of the future?
[Greg Felder] Thank you for that question, Rebecca. Henriette, what’s your response?
[Henriette Kolb] Yeah, it would really borrow from what Frederico just said and say these three fundaments to job creation hold in small island states as well. But they need to be coupled with a couple of more double downs. So one, I would double click on adaptation of resilient infrastructure. Adaptation finance is currently nowhere where it needs to be. And we’ve seen that small island states are, of course, much more hit by natural disasters and have to wither shocks. So, investment into resilient and adaptive infrastructure is key, but that also relates to communities. And so, making sure that you don’t just have more jobs, but dignified, safe jobs with predictable income that will allow individuals to save some money, to ideally take out insurance products, to ideally invest in business so that everyone is better prepared for any shock that there is to come.
[Greg Felder] Thank you, Henriette. We have one more video question which is coming to us now.
[Gabriel Benitez] Hi, everyone. My name is Gabriel Benitez. I’m an architect, impact entrepreneur, and co-founder of UPGREEN Paraguay’s largest vertical gardening company. Well, the biggest challenge for young people in Paraguay is finding jobs that are not dissociating from social and environmental impacts. So how can global institutions and governments help businesses and communities to create the sustainable, inclusive jobs we need for the future?
[Greg Felder] That’s a great question, Gabriel, and I’d actually like to hear from you both on this. Frederico, would you start?
[Frederico Gil Sander] Yes. Thank you very much. So we mentioned the three pillars of job creation. The World Bank has also selected five sectors for job-rich growth, and I’d like to highlight three of them that I think are very much related to sustainable and inclusive jobs of the future. One of them is on infrastructure and energy. A lot of the energy jobs that are coming up are going to be in renewable energy. I think that that’s going to be important. We’re focusing a lot on that. Number two is on tourism. Tourism requires a lot of preservation of natural assets, and I think that it’s also very much related to the sustainability agenda. Finally, when we look at manufacturing and especially value-added manufacturing, we note that a lot of countries have critical minerals that are going to be critical for the sustainable transition, and those are also going to create a lot of jobs.
[Henriette Kolb] Yeah, I would complement from an investor perspective. Investors can really drive environmental and social outcomes by placing additional value on them. What I mean by that is we can link social environmental outcomes to sustainable finance instruments, and so incentivize a directional shift towards better environmental results as well as better social outcomes, such as jobs, for example. And in fact, we’ve pivoted so far into that direction that 40% of IFC’s infrastructure investments took that approach last year. But to be concrete, we’ve just closed the transaction with ENGIE [Energía] Perú, where we had two indicators that really drove green outcomes as well as social outcomes. One was around adaptation, and that’s one of the very first in that remit. And then, the second one was around getting women into more senior management roles because women were more concentrated at lower parts of the workforce. This gives you one example, but there are many more, and I think it’s exciting. As long as we are rigorous, these indicators have to be material and they have to be thoroughly evidence-backed.
[Greg Felder] Thank you for those insights, and thank you to our video contributors for those questions. And thank you to everyone joining our conversation online. Our experts are online now with you, answering as many questions as they can in the chat. Now, let’s see what you told us in the live poll. As a reminder, we asked you, what in your opinion, will shape the future of work the most? Was it A, AI and automation? B, the sustainable transition, C, global trade, or D, education and training? The results are rolling in, and AI and automation is number one at 45%, I’m not too surprised there. And education and training with 34% comes in second place. Any quick thoughts on this, Frederico, Henriette?
[Frederico Gil Sander] I think that all of these are going to be very important, shaping the jobs of the future. And I think that, of course, I think that AI is going to be quite transformative, which reinforces some of what we discussed before about closing the digital gap, both in terms of skills as well as infrastructure.
[Greg Felder] Henriette, any thoughts on the live poll?
[Henriette Kolb] Yeah, and to me, I concur, but at the same time, I’m a bit surprised and disappointed about the sustainable transition being ranked so low. I think we are in the middle of it, and we’ve seen massive job shifts because of it. We look to a just transition, and we see more private sector players being really interested in that just transition dimension. In fact, 41% of IFC’s top clients have really expressed interest in that. On the education and training piece, I think one report that just came out from the World Bank showed that we need 1.4 trillion in investment in online education to really bring and bridge this skills gap. And so, these are the fundaments that I think are critical for us to be headed in the right direction.
[Greg Felder] Wow. That’s a sobering data point there on education. So now, let’s move on to the questions from those of you that are joining the conversation online. Our first topic will be entrepreneurship. Henriette, I’ll start with you. We have a question from Cosmas in Malawi. Cosmas asks, “What support systems are necessary to foster youth entrepreneurship in developing regions?”
[Henriette Kolb] Cosmas, excellent question. And we’ve worked on this for a long time and learned a lot. What we’ve seen is that in essence, you need seven interventions and support system to grow entrepreneurs and to help them create more jobs. Conveniently, these fall into seven Cs. So, bear with me, which are: capacity, meaning really looking at how you can accelerate your customer base, how you design for users, it means, of course, capital, critical across the full capital spectrum. It means contracts, ideally being embedded in value chains. It means confidence, so you can pitch the ideas. Very important for times when they’re hard. There will be some when you go and build your business. Community, connectivity. I think you spoke to that in the opening question. Significantly is relevant, digital connectivity. And then, of course, it’s care for, in particular, women who oftentimes have to make choices between paid and unpaid responsibilities. And so, these seven Cs, I think that’s where we can convene as investors, as the World Bank, and of course, with a large amount of civil society organization as well.
[Greg Felder] Thank you. The seven Cs, I like that. I think I’ll borrow that at some point, if you don’t mind. And, Frederico, the next question is for you. It comes from Siphiwe, who wants to know, “How can entrepreneurship be leveraged as a solution to address youth unemployment in developing countries?”
[Frederico Gil Sander] Thank you very much for that question. Youth unemployment is clearly something that is a big challenge for policymakers, and entrepreneurship should be one of the key ways that governments can facilitate for youth to actually find good employment. I think that I also really like the seven Cs of Henriette. I think that that summarizes a lot of some of the things that governments can do. And I would also go back to the three to the three pillars in terms of ensuring that if you’re going to create a business, that you have the right enabling environment, that young entrepreneurs have the right foundations, as well as the financing. And I think that this is also a place where governments maybe can come in in partnership with the private sector.
[Greg Felder] Thank you, Frederico. I’ll stay with you for this next question. It comes from Thomas in South Africa. He’d like to know, “How could the forecast unemployment gap, the stat that we talked about at the top, be addressed not only in cities, but also in rural areas?”
[Frederico Gil Sander] Thank you for that question. I mentioned five job-rich sectors that the World Bank is focusing on. Another one of them is agribusiness. I think that this is also with a view that there are the agrifood systems, agriculture and the related sectors that provide food and raw materials. Right now, they may actually be focused a lot on the production side, but there’s a lot of room for making them more productive and to linking them more to manufacturing and to the processing of food and to the processing of some of those raw materials. Many of those jobs happen to take place closer to rural areas, or at least in cities that are smaller than the main capitals. We see that agribusiness could really be one of the key ways to reduce unemployment in rural areas as well.
[Greg Felder] Thank you. Good points. Our final audience question, Henriette, I’ll pass this one to you, comes from Sandra in Ecuador. She asked, “How can young people remain updated on what skills we should be focused on improving or learning, especially with how fast-paced innovation is today?”
[Henriette Kolb] Excellent question. I’m asking myself that pretty much daily. The tools that I tend to use is, one, trying to really continuously learn, and that’s in two forms. One is on Coursera, for example, online learning. These are medium to longer term courses you can take, but also daily bite-size learnings really help me. So Duolingo to pick up a new language is helpful. The second I would flag is watch startups and also what big tech is doing. And so, you could use TechCrunch or Product Hunt. These are good gateways to get a sense of that. And perhaps adding one more is looking at trend tracking tools. We have Coursera skills index. You have Linked In’s Future Skills Report. You have Google Trends, etc. So, there’s a whole number of tools that track these trends and then that can help advise you. And perhaps last, reflect and recalibrate and be graceful. You can’t pick up everything at the same time, and that’s okay. As long as you bring in the right attitude and openness to admitting what you know and what you don’t know, you’ll be all right.
[Greg Felder] Thank you. That’s very good practical advice. And thank you to everyone who submitted their questions online. So we’re almost at the end of our time, but I wanted to follow up, actually, on that last question from Sandra and ask you both, what is one skill, one particular skill that you think people should focus on in the next five years? And Frederico will start with you.
[Frederico Gil Sander] She asked for one, but I’ll give three. Okay. So I think that the number one is teamwork. I think that with all the changes in technology, teamwork and working with others is still going to be critical. But I would also add curiosity because I think that’s important for lifelong learning. And I think that the more that jobs change, the more the curiosity becomes important as well as creativity. I think that the machines will never be as creative as humans.
[Greg Felder] Henriette, one skill or multiple skills.
[Henriette Kolb] I think Frederico cheated because he took behaviors, and I really like that because I feel skills always need to be renewed, but behaviors underline the future of jobs. And to me, that’s be kind and be of service. I think those two, in addition to all of the ones you mentioned, will carry you very far. I think if you ask what you can contribute as opposed to what someone else can do for you, you’ll make sure that your value is being recognized.
[Greg Felder] Thank you. And then finally, as we wrap up, I have one final question. So, we’ve talked a lot about what we should start doing in preparing for the future, but looking back, what’s one thing that’s outdated, maybe an outdated idea that we should stop doing and leave in the past? And Henriette, I’ll start with you.
[Henriette Kolb] Yeah, I think information as power is outdated to me. What’s in is to connect these pieces of information and to spot market trends and then build markets around into the future that are inclusive, as well as leading us to a sustainable planet.
[Greg Felder] And Frederico, one thing we should stop.
[Frederico Gil Sander] I think that one thing that is more and more going to be in the past is the idea that you have only one job your entire life. I think that change is the new norm, and I think that this is why it’s so important to continue to learn going forward.
[Greg Felder] Thank you so much, Frederico, Henriette. And thanks to everyone who joined us online today. The chat was full of questions and comments, more than we could even answer live. But we love how engaged you are. So, we’ll actually keep the chat open for another day. Keep your ideas, comments, questions coming. And if you’d like updates on upcoming live events, subscribe to receive updates at worldbank.org/live. Thanks again, and we look forward to seeing you next time on World Bank Live.
