by Laboratory of the Future analysis team | Apr 3, 2025 | Economy and the future of work
New technologies are transforming people’s work lives worldwide, either by changing their jobs or replacing functions
Adapting to this monumental change will require funding to reskill and upskill these workers.
Seven initiatives show how public and private sector organizations can share the responsibility of creating a workforce prepared for the future.
Technology is on track to transform 1.1 billion jobs by 2030. In the United States alone, 1.37 million workers could be displaced from their roles in the next decade due to the adoption of new technologies. However, these workers could be reskilled to take on new roles that require similar skills and offer higher wages. Reskilling would cost an average of $34 billion, or $24,800 per displaced worker.
Currently, there is limited and unreliable information about the economic feasibility and return on investment of upskilling and reskilling initiatives. This lack of clarity about where and how much to invest presents a similar challenge for workers, who also do not know how much they should invest themselves. The same applies to potential funders of these initiatives, such as government entities, specific programs, companies, and unions.
Since 2024, the World Economic Forum’s Reskilling Revolution initiative has secured commitments from various organizations to reskill, upskill, and train 680 million people worldwide. However, turning these commitments into concrete actions will require a critical analysis of the costs associated with the need for lifelong learning. It will also be necessary to develop more innovative models to fairly distribute the responsibility for training among individuals, employers, and governments.
Members of the World Economic Forum’s Future Skills Alliance have identified four key principles to consider when funding continuous learning, upskilling, and reskilling initiatives:
The following seven initiatives have applied these principles to create funding models that promote skill development, capacity building, and reskilling in various contexts:
- Siemens SiTecSkills Academy: Building the Workforce of the Future Today
Using a combined funding model, this initiative provides technical training to both Siemens’ workforce and its external partners. The content is partly based on the company’s vocational training program focused on digitalization and sustainability. Leveraging government co-financing of up to 25% through Germany’s Qualification Opportunities Act and sharing training costs with its partners, Siemens can ensure long-term employability and alignment with the changing demands of the industry for its workers.
- Skillsoft and Syracuse University: Collaborative Funding for Post-Service Skills for US Veterans and Their Families
The D’Aniello Institute for Veterans and Military Families at Syracuse University, in collaboration with Skillsoft, runs the Onward to Opportunity program. This reskilling initiative offers service members and their spouses certifications in high-demand tech areas such as cloud computing, cybersecurity, networking, and project management. The program is funded through an innovative combination of corporate sponsorships, federal grants, and private donations. This model not only ensures sustainable funding but also aligns with the university’s mission-driven partnerships.
- General Assembly of The Adecco Group and Tamkeen: A Partnership to Prepare Bahrain’s Future Tech Talent
This program uses a government-funded, 100% results-based funding model to offer fully accessible tech boot camps to citizens of Bahrain. Led by General Assembly, the Adecco Group’s tech and AI training provider, and Tamkeen, a government agency supporting private-sector training, the program aligns training with industry needs to address skill gaps and advance Bahrain’s Economic Vision 2030. This public-private collaboration focuses particularly on emerging technologies and digital skills training.
- Social Finance US and American Diesel Training Centers (ADTC): Empowering Economic Mobility
ADTC and the nonprofit Social Finance have partnered to address the diesel technician shortage in the US. This program provides an affordable and condensed training path for underserved communities. Funded with nearly $9 million from Social Finance’s UP Fund, this initiative also uses a flat-rate reimbursement model in which employers cover training costs for many graduates. This makes the program a sustainable and accessible route for workforce economic mobility.
- Aramco: Enhancing Vocational Training through Public-Private Strategic Partnerships
Saudi Aramco has used its expertise in vocational training to establish National Training Centers in collaboration with the government, aiming to address specific skill requirements in technical and vocational fields through employment-led training schemes. These centers align education with industry demand in sectors like energy and manufacturing, promoting long-term workforce development. The initiative relies on a unique contribution scheme, where Saudi Aramco provides initial funding and technical expertise, while the government handles training facilities, approvals, and subsidies for sponsoring companies.
- Majid Al Futtaim Group: Preparing Emirati Talent for Emerging Jobs
Majid Al Futtaim’s program addresses skill alignment for Emirati talent in high-demand sectors, offering “key skills” workshops for professional development. This includes on-the-job training and employability training to upskill and reskill local talent. The training covers areas like communication, resilience, critical thinking, adaptability, and readiness for change. The program’s public-private funding model involves 70% of costs funded by the government through the Abu Dhabi Global Market, with the remaining 30% covered by employers.
- Amazon Web Services (AWS) Spain and its Technology Alliance: Closing the Global Tech Skills Gap
The AWS Skills to Jobs Tech Alliance is a global coalition aimed at addressing the tech skills gap through collaboration with employers, government agencies, workforce development organizations, and educational leaders. The initiative operates in 11 countries and adopts a collaborative funding model with co-investment from AWS, employers, and governments. AWS provides students with access to learning materials, cloud credits for hands-on learning using AWS technical resources, and support for educator empowerment at no cost. Regional governments contribute by allocating budgets for professional development of educators in digital skills.
These investments in adult learning aim to address current skill shortages and build future talent pipelines, creating specific pathways to employment through training, upskilling, on-the-job learning, and reskilling for job transitions. Each program is carried out in a specific context and faces individual challenges, suggesting the importance of aligning funding.
To monitor success, these initiatives measure four different levels of impact:
Level 1: Adoption and Engagement
Level 2: Skill Acquisition
Level 3: Skill Applicability for Jobs
Level 4: Economic and Business Impact
Four ways to measure the return on training initiatives.
All organizations involved measure impact at adoption and engagement (level one), while a smaller proportion measure levels two and three.
The next step for these initiatives (level four) will be a shift in focus, from tracking the number of people reached to achieving real, measurable outcomes in terms of business and economic impact, including job accessibility, placement rates, economic mobility, and improvements in productivity and competitiveness. Undoubtedly, more detailed longitudinal tracking of data and results is needed to understand how upskilling and reskilling initiatives are contributing to business productivity and economic growth.
As the global workforce faces the monumental challenge of adapting to new technologies, these initiatives are already demonstrating how we can begin to more equitably distribute the responsibility of funding training, upskilling, and reskilling between education providers, employers, individuals, and governments.
Licensing and Republishing
World Economic Forum articles can be republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public License, and according to our terms of use.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and not of the World Economic Forum.
Aarushi Singhania
Initiatives Lead, People Centric Pillar, Advanced Manufacturing, World Economic Forum
Neil Allison
Head of Education, Skills and Learning Mission, World Economic Forum
This article is part of: World Economic Forum Annual Meeting
by Laboratory of the Future analysis team | Jan 16, 2025 | geopolitics
The American president’s decision seeks to ensure the necessary infrastructure for advanced AI operations
United States President Joseph Biden signed an ambitious executive order on artificial intelligence aimed at ensuring the necessary infrastructure for advanced AI operations, such as large-scale data centers and new clean energy facilities that can be quickly built in the United States.
The executive order instructs federal agencies to accelerate the development of large-scale AI infrastructure on government sites, while also imposing requirements and safeguards on developers building in those locations. It also directs certain agencies to make federal sites available for AI data centers and new clean energy facilities. These agencies will help facilitate the interconnection of infrastructure with the power grid and assist in expediting the permitting process.
In a statement, Biden said AI will have “profound implications for national security and enormous potential to improve the lives of Americans if harnessed responsibly—from helping cure diseases to keeping communities safe by mitigating the effects of climate change.”
“However, we cannot take our leadership for granted,” said the Democratic president. “We will not allow the United States to be outpaced in the technology that will define the future, nor should we sacrifice critical environmental standards and our shared efforts to protect clean air and water.”
Under the new rules, the Departments of Defense and Energy will each identify at least three sites where the private sector can build AI data centers. The agencies will carry out “competitive bids” from private companies to build artificial intelligence data centers on those federal sites, senior administration officials said.
Developers building on those sites will be required, among other things, to pay for the construction of those facilities and to provide enough clean energy generation to cover the total capacity needs of their data centers. Although the U.S. government will lease land to a company, that company will own the materials it creates there, officials said.
Less than a week before President-elect Donald Trump takes office, a major question is whether the incoming administration will maintain or rescind the new order. Much of the order’s focus is on reducing bottlenecks in connecting energy-hungry data centers to new sources of electricity.
“It has to be a priority because otherwise there will be blackouts, there will be citizens or businesses affected by this,” said computer scientist Sacha Luccioni, climate lead at AI company Hugging Face. “Facilitating the interconnection of infrastructure to the power grid is an obvious move that would be useful for the next administration, regardless of their priorities in terms of sustainability or climate.”
Biden said the efforts are designed to accelerate the clean energy transition in a “responsible way that respects local communities” and that does not add costs for the average American. Developers selected to build on government sites will be required to pay all costs of building and operating the AI infrastructure so that the development does not increase electricity prices for consumers, the administration stated.
That kind of investment will also prevent the United States from relying on other countries to access AI tools, said Tarun Chhabra, deputy assistant to the president and coordinator for technology and national security.
The executive order comes after the Biden administration proposed new restrictions on AI chip exports, aimed at balancing national security concerns about the technology with the economic interests of producers and other countries. That proposal raised concerns from chip industry executives as well as European Union officials about export restrictions affecting 120 countries.
by Laboratory of the Future analysis team | Jan 6, 2025 | geopolitics, States and technology
Piketty, Varoufakis, and Acemoglu warn that the contest between the social network X and Brasilia is yet another chapter in the “alarming” global effort by large companies to control the digital development of countries.
Editorial Note from Future Lab: The issue of Brazil’s digital sovereignty, which is extremely important, is also imbued with ideological questions. None of the opposing parties is innocent—not Brazil, embodied by Alexandre de Moraes, Supreme Court Judge, who is not exactly a champion of free speech, nor his personal opponent, Elon Musk. On the other hand, some activists, such as former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis—an extraordinary writer who must be taken very seriously in all related matters and whose latest book (Technofeudalism) we recommend, clearly oriented in a Marxist direction—are also involved. That is why we believe these issues must be analyzed carefully and with the necessary rational filters. We are witnessing a huge global battle between those who call for “digital sovereignty,” which is absolutely logical and should not be politicized, and the real “feudalism” of the big tech companies, which, as has already been demonstrated before parliamentary authorities in the European Union and the United States, is an extremely dangerous reality. Moreover, the “freedom of expression” of Marxist and pro-Marxist currents has traditionally proven to be just as dangerous. It will be necessary to walk a careful middle path.
Prof. Dr. Ricardo Petrissans Aguilar
COLLABORATION BY Manuel G. Pascual – EL PAÍS OF MADRID
The echoes of the ban on the social network X in Brazil continue to resonate three weeks later. Motivated by the “repeated noncompliance with judicial orders” by the platform led by Elon Musk, which refused to block profiles that contribute to the “mass dissemination of Nazi, racist, fascist, hateful, and anti-democratic speeches,” the forced closure of the platform has been interpreted as a wake-up call to society against the excesses of tech companies. However, it remains to be seen what real effects this blow will have.
Half a dozen economists, academics, and activists published an open letter on Tuesday demanding an end to the pressure exerted by “big tech companies” on Brasilia to curb the deployment of various initiatives aimed at defending its digital sovereignty.
“We wish to express our deep concern regarding the continuous attacks by large tech companies and their allies against Brazil’s digital sovereignty,” the document begins. The dispute between the Brazilian government and Elon Musk is only the latest example of a broader effort to “restrict the ability of sovereign nations to set a digital development agenda free from the control of megacorporations based in the US,” the signatories emphasize, among them economists such as Thomas Piketty, who shook the field a decade ago with Capital in the Twenty-First Century; Yanis Varoufakis, the brief Greek Finance Minister who handled the country’s bailout; inequality expert Daron Acemoglu; and Mariana Mazzucato. Other prominent names supporting the text include Shoshana Zuboff, author of The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, essayist Evgeny Morozov, and jurist Renata Ávila.
¿What does the second photo from Plaza de Colón imply for the right?
Academics emphasize that Brazil has become the “key front” in the “global conflict between tech corporations and those seeking to build a democratic, people-centered digital landscape focused on social and economic development.” According to the document, President Lula da Silva is pursuing digital independence for his country by reducing its dependence on foreign entities for data, AI capabilities, and digital infrastructure, and by forcing big tech companies “to pay fair taxes, comply with local laws, and be held accountable for the social externalities of their business models.”
The response to this Brazilian regulatory push has been the challenge posed by some tech companies, such as X, and the threats from others aimed at “undermining initiatives that seek technological autonomy” in the American country. The signatories of the document believe that what is happening there concerns us all. “More than a warning to Brazil, [the actions of big tech companies] send a worrying message to the world: that democratic countries seeking independence from the dominance of big tech companies risk having their democracies disrupted, with some corporations supporting far-right movements and parties.”
“We demand that big tech companies cease their attempts to sabotage Brazil’s initiatives aimed at developing independent capabilities in artificial intelligence, public digital infrastructure, data management, and cloud technology,” the letter states, without specifying which acts of sabotage it refers to. One of the document’s signatories points to AWS, an Amazon subsidiary, which held a meeting with government representatives three weeks ago to offer a service proposal to support the sovereign cloud project that Brasilia is working on. “Big tech companies not only control the digital world, but also lobby and work against the public sector’s ability to create and maintain an independent digital agenda,” reads the statement presented today.
From the European exception to the American:
Brazil, host of the November G20 summit, presented its AI plan in July, which envisions an investment of 4 billion dollars over the next ten years and, under the slogan “IA para o Bem de Todos” (AI for the Good of All), includes the regulation of this technology to establish clear limits and ensure its development is inclusive and sustainable. The government also has a program underway to establish a national cloud computing infrastructure.
The Brazilian case is further confirmation that the regulatory momentum around technology is not solely a European prerogative. The EU’s ambitious legal framework in digital matters, which will be completed in 2026 when the AI Regulation comes into effect, has inspired legislative initiatives in some U.S. states and other countries. This week, the report on AI governance—on which the UN has been working for a year and a half—will be released.
“This is a crucial moment for the world. We need an independent approach to reclaim digital sovereignty and control over our public digital sphere,” the statement concludes.
Text of the Letter mentioned in the heading:
Public Letter: Against the Attack of Big Tech on Digital Sovereignties
The undersigned wish to express our deep concern over the continuous attacks by big tech companies and their allies on Brazil’s digital sovereignty. Brazil’s dispute with Elon Musk is just the latest example of a broader effort to restrict the ability of sovereign nations to define a digital development agenda free from the control of megacorporations based in the United States.
At the end of August, Brazil’s Supreme Court banned [a certain action in] 2023. Subsequently, President Lula da Silva made clear the Brazilian government’s intention to pursue digital independence: to reduce the country’s dependence on foreign entities for data, artificial intelligence capabilities, and digital infrastructure, and to promote the development of local technological ecosystems. In line with these objectives, the Brazilian state also intends to force big tech companies to pay fair taxes, comply with local laws, and be held accountable for the social externalities of their business models, which often promote violence and inequality.
These efforts have encountered attacks from the owner of X and from far-right leaders who complain about democracy and free speech. But precisely because the digital space lacks internationally and democratically agreed-upon regulations, big tech companies operate as rulers, governing what should be moderated and what is promoted on their platforms.
Moreover, X and other companies have begun organizing themselves and rallying their allies both inside and outside the country to undermine initiatives aimed at achieving Brazil’s technological autonomy. More than just a warning to Brazil, their actions send a worrying message to the world: that democratic countries seeking to free themselves from the dominance of Big Tech run the risk of having their democracies disrupted, with some Big Tech companies supporting far-right movements and parties.
The Brazilian case has become the fundamental front in the evolving global conflict between big tech corporations and those seeking to build a democratic, people-centered digital landscape focused on social and economic development.
Big tech companies not only control the digital world, but they also exert pressure and work against the public sector’s ability to create and maintain an independent digital agenda based on local values, needs, and aspirations. When their financial interests are at stake, they happily work with authoritarian governments. What we need is enough digital space for states to steer technology and to put people and the planet ahead of private profits or unilateral state control.
All those who defend democratic values should support Brazil in its quest for digital sovereignty. We demand that big tech companies cease their attempts to sabotage Brazil’s initiatives aimed at building independent capabilities in artificial intelligence, public digital infrastructure, data management, and cloud technology. These attacks undermine not only the rights of Brazilian citizens but also the broader aspirations of every democratic nation to achieve technological sovereignty.
We also call on the Brazilian government to remain steadfast in implementing its digital agenda and to denounce any pressures against it. The United Nations system and governments around the world should support these efforts. This is a crucial moment for the world. An independent approach to reclaim digital sovereignty and control over our public digital sphere cannot wait. There is also an urgent need to develop, within the UN framework, the basic principles of transnational regulation for accessing and using digital services while promoting digital ecosystems that put people and the planet ahead of profits, so that this testing ground for Big Tech does not become a common practice in other territories.
Anita Gurumurthy, IT for Change
Çağrı Çavuş, SOMO
Adjunct Professor Cecilia Rikap, University College London, IIPP, and CONICET
Professor Cédric Durand, University of Geneva
Professor CP Chandrasekhar, IDEA and PERI, UMass
Dr. Cory Doctorow (hc), author, activist, journalist
Professor Cristina Caffarra, University College London, CEPR RPN Contest
Professor Daron Acemoglu, MIT Economics
David Adler, International Progressive
Ekaitz Cancela, Center for the Advancement of Infrastructural Imagination (CAII)
Associate Professor Edemilson Paraná, LUT University
Professor Emiliano Brancaccio, University of Sannio
Dr. Evgeny Morozov, author and producer of “The Santiago Boys” and “A Sense of Rebellion”
Adjunct Professor Francesca Bria, University College London, IIPP, and Stiftung Mercator
Professor Gabriel Zucman, Paris School of Economics and UC Berkeley
Professor Helena Martins, Federal University of Ceará
Professor Jason Hickel, ICTA-UAB and LSE
Dr. Jathan Sadowski, Monash University
Professor Jayati Ghosh, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Department of Economics
Dr. Joel Rabinovich, King’s College London
Professor José Graziano da Silva, Zero Hunger Institute – former Director General of the FAO
Professor José van Dijck, Utrecht University
Professor Juan Martín Graña, CONICET and the National University of San Martín
Professor Julia Cagé, Sciences Po Paris, Department of Economics
Professor Marcela Amaro, National Autonomous University of Mexico
Professor Marcos Dantas, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro
Professor Margarita Olivera, Institute of Economics, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro
Professor Mariana Mazzucato, University College London, author of Mission Economy
Margarida Silva, SOMO
Dr. María Farrell, writer
Marietje Schaake, Stanford University, author of The Tech Coup
Professor Martín Becerra, CONICET and the University of Buenos Aires
Professor Martín Guzmán, School of Public and International Affairs (SIPA), Columbia University
Nandini Chami, IT for Change
Dr. Niall Reddy, Wits University
Professor Nick Couldry, London School of Economics
Dr. Nick Srnicek, King’s College London
Professor Paola Ricaurte Quijano, Monterrey Institute of Technology
Dr. Paolo Gerbaudo, Complutense University of Madrid
Paris Marx, technology presenter (“Technology Won’t Save Us”)
Professor Phoebe Moore, University of Essex
Dr. Raffaele Giammetti, University of Cassino and Southern Lazio
Renata Ávila, CEO – Open Knowledge Foundation, affiliated with CIS at CNRS, France
Robin Berjon, Governance Technologist
Rodrigo Fernández, SOMO
Professor Sergio Amadeu da Silveira, Federal University of ABC
Professor Shoshana Zuboff, author of The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power
Sofía Scasserra, Transnational Institute (TNI)
Professor Stefano Lucarelli, University of Bergamo
Professor Thomas Piketty, Paris School of Economics and EHESS
Professor Ulises Mejías, State University of New York
Professor Ugo Pagano, University of Siena
Professor Wolfgang Streeck, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies
Yanis Varoufakis, Secretary General, MeRA25
by Laboratory of the Future analysis team | Sep 21, 2024 | Economy, Globalization, States and technology
Companies like ExxonMobil and Blackstone are also major funders of the climate crisis, according to a new union report.
Some of the world’s largest companies have been accused of undermining democracy worldwide by financially supporting far-right political movements, funding and exacerbating the climate crisis, and violating labor rights and human rights, according to a report released on Monday by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC).
Amazon, Tesla, Meta, ExxonMobil, Blackstone, Vanguard, and Glencore are the companies named in the report. Corporate lobbying groups are attempting to shape global policy at the United Nations’ Future Summit to be held in New York City on September 22-23.
In Amazon, the report highlights the company’s size and role as the fifth-largest employer in the world and the largest online retailer and cloud computing service, which has had a profound impact on industries and communities where it operates.
“The company has become infamous for its anti-union practices and low wages across several continents, its monopoly on e-commerce, its atrocious carbon emissions through its AWS data centers, its tax evasion, and its lobbying at national and international levels,” states the report.
The report cites, among other cases, Amazon’s high workplace injury rates in the U.S., the company’s challenge to the constitutionality of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), its efforts in Canada to overturn labor legislation, the banning of Amazon lobbyists from entering the European Parliament for refusing to attend hearings on workers’ rights violations, and its refusal to negotiate with unions in Germany. Amazon has also funded far-right political groups to undermine women’s rights and antitrust legislation, and its retail website has been used by hate groups to raise money and sell products.
In Tesla, the report cites the company’s anti-union opposition in the U.S., Germany, and Sweden; human rights violations within its supply chains; and Elon Musk’s personal opposition to unions and democracy, challenges to the NLRB in the U.S., and his support for political leaders Donald Trump, Javier Milei in Argentina, and Narendra Modi in India.
The report cites Meta, the world’s largest social media company, for its significant role in enabling far-right propaganda and movements to use its platforms to grow their membership and gain support both in the U.S. and abroad. It also mentions the company’s retaliation against regulatory measures taken in Canada and its costly lobbying efforts against data privacy laws.
Glencore, the world’s largest mining company by revenue, was included in the report for its role in financing global campaigns against indigenous communities and activists.
Blackstone, the private equity firm led by Stephen Schwarzman, a billionaire supporter of Donald Trump, was cited in the report for its role in financing far-right political movements, investing in fossil fuel projects, and deforestation in the Amazon.
“Blackstone’s network has spent tens of millions of dollars supporting politicians and political forces that promise to prevent or eliminate regulations that could hold it accountable,” the report states. Blackstone has questioned the deforestation claims in the Amazon and sold its remaining shares in the company in question in 2021. The company argued that it does not make direct political contributions and that the contributions from its executives are personal.
The Vanguard Group was included in the report for its role in financing some of the most anti-democratic corporations in the world. ExxonMobil was cited for funding climate-denying research and lobbying aggressively against environmental regulations.
Even in “strong democracies,” workers’ demands “are overwhelmed by corporate lobbying operations, whether in policymaking or in the elections themselves,” said Todd Brogan, ITUC’s Campaigns and Organizing Director.
“It’s about power, who holds it, and who sets the agenda. As trade unionists, we know that unless we are organized, the boss sets the agenda at the workplace, and as citizens of our countries, we know that unless we are organized and demand responsive governments that actually meet people’s needs, it will be corporate power setting the agenda.
“They are playing the long game, and it’s about transferring power away from democracy at all levels to a point where they don’t care about the effects on workers but are focused on maximizing their influence, their extractive power, and their profits,” Brogan added. “Now is the time for international and multi-sector strategies, because in many cases, multinational corporations are more powerful than states and have no democratic accountability except to organized workers.”
The ITUC includes affiliates from labor groups in 169 nations and territories worldwide, representing 191 million workers, including the AFL-CIO, the largest federation of trade unions in the United States, and the Trades Union Congress in the UK. Given that 4 billion people worldwide will participate in the 2024 elections, the federation is pushing for the development of a binding international treaty through the open-ended intergovernmental working group to demand that transnational companies be held accountable to international human rights laws.
Original Source: The Guardian, London, Michael Sainato. Translation by Laboratorio del Futuro team.
