The COVID-19 pandemic has made an enormous impact to the economy and society, including the employment structure. NXPO Vice President Dr. Kanchana Wanichkorn revealed that NXPO has conducted study analyzing the job landscape and future workforce as a result of the pandemic as well as other megatrends including the rise of aging population and technological disruption. Understanding the future workforce demand will help with the design of the manpower development and planning.
The World Economic Forum (WEF) has predicted that machines will displace some 85 million jobs by 2025. However, the machine revolution is expected to create 97 million new jobs in the areas such as digital technology, data science and automation. The rapid pace of technological diffusion will also make current skills outdated quickly.
NXPO conducted a survey on high-skilled workforce demands in the strategic industries in the next five years (2020-2024). The results revealed that there will be more than 170,000 job openings for skilled workforce in the 12 target industries. Jobs in high demand include data scientists, crop modeling analyst and digital marketing specialist.
In addition to knowledge and competency, skills such as analytical, communication, digital and creative capabilities will also be crucial for the future workforce. This change in employment structure will not only affect people in the labor market but also the higher education system that will need to ensure the delivery of workforce with skills and competency meeting the current and future demand of labor market.
