Future of Jobs in Mining Regions
23 April 2021
This Mining brief summarises key findings from the World Economic Forum’s 'The Future of Jobs Report 2020' focussing on data relevant to the Mining and Metals sector. The brief provides a concise resource of sector-specific information on the future of work to assist the industry to plan for and prepare their future workforce strategies.
- The survey contained 291 unique responses by global companies, collectively representing more than 7.7 million employees worldwide. Among those companies, 28 were from the mining and metals sector. The survey represents the views of c-suite executives and in particular chief human resources officers (52% of respondents), Chief Executives (12% of respondents) as well as other c-suite functions.
- The companies surveyed are primarily focused on the adoption of three key technologies in the next four years, nonhumanoid robotics; internet of things (IoT)1 and connected devices; and big data analytics.
- 73% of companies identified skills gaps in the local labour market as the biggest barrier to the adoption of such new technology.
- Companies identified that an average of 48% existing employees would require reskilling/upskilling in the next four years to meet the evolving skills required for the tasks they would have to perform.
- In the next four years the average employee’s skillset will change by 40% and most companies expected existing employees to pick up skills on the job and had this as their primary strategy to address the shifting skills demand.
- Internal learning and development was thought by companies to be where the most (37%) of their future retraining would occur.
- Despite differences in skills and work profiles across countries, the types of emerging skills and jobs, the types of redundant jobs and the focus of current reskilling and upskilling programmes were similar.