Global Economic Futures Productivity in 2030 2025

Hopes for a global productivity breakthrough have faltered in this scenario, with the twin slowdown of technological and human capital development undermining economic dynamism. While the complementarity between humans and technology is recognized as a key driver of productivity, businesses and governments have failed to unlock its potential. Technological advancements and incremental human capital improvements have occurred in isolated pockets, but global productivity growth and prosperity remain uneven. By 2030, global GDP growth has settled below early-decade projections of around 3%.42 Geopolitical rivalries and economic pressures during the 2020s have given rise to inward-looking policies with increased government intervention and protectionism in critical technologies. Public resistance to frontier technologies and automation has grown, slowing the commercialization of promising technological developments, such as AI, and prompting many businesses to cut back on potentially transformative technological projects. Global cooperation has fragmented, leading to duplicated innovation and supply-chain inefficiencies. Major economies have prioritized protecting key technologies and developing national champions, leading to distortions in competition and global trade. By 2030, cutting-edge innovations remain confined to global technology hubs and select industries. Prohibitive costs, diverging regulations and stronger barriers to knowledge and technology sharing have limited the wider diffusion and scaling of technologies. Even strong innovation ecosystems face reduced dynamism due to talent shortages, trade wars and shrinking supplies of critical materials. Rising fiscal and geopolitical pressures have undermined stimulus packages aimed at reviving technological and human capital development, with many governments diverting resources towards shorter-term priorities. By 2030, global R&D expenditure had stayed close to the mid-2020s level, failing to restore economic dynamism. Businesses, meanwhile, have shifted focus to short-term cost- optimization strategies over innovation. Spending on education has stalled too.43 Global literacy rates have improved only marginally, while lifelong learning and labour policy reforms have faltered, leaving reskilling and skill-matching opportunities inaccessible to large segments of the population. Skills gaps have widened in most economies, with the share of employers reporting difficulty in recruiting people with the right skills spiking above 75% recorded in the mid-2020s.44 Labour market polarization persists, with high-skill knowledge workers thriving while many others remain stuck in low-skill, low-wage, low-quality jobs. Weak human capital development has led to rising inequality, hollowing out the middle class and exacerbating social tensions. Globally, prosperity and living standards continue to diverge, while progress on the Sustainable Development Goals has stalled at mid-2020s levels.45 Global productivity growth has declined further from already weak levels. Isolated pockets of progress exist, particularly for businesses that integrated earlier technological advances. However, the slow diffusion of innovation and the growing competition for talent have dampened the competitiveness of laggard firms and sectors. GDP growth, % annual Baseline: 2.7% (IMF, 2019-2024 average) Labour productivity growth (GDP per worker), % annual Baseline: 1.2% (ILO, 2019-2024 average) Total factor productivity growth, % annual Baseline: 0.7% (The Conference Board, 2024) Advanced technology adoption rate, % Baseline: 15% (based on WIPO 2022-2023, Accenture 2023, Acemoglu et al. 2022) Total R&D spending (public and private), % of GDP Baseline: 2.6% (World Bank, 2021) Share of business tasks performed by technology, % Baseline: 22% (World Economic Forum, 2025) Public spending on workforce training, % of GDP Baseline: 0.11% (OECD, 2021) Skills mismatch, % of over and underqualified employment Baseline: 46% (OECD, ILO, 2021) Note: The arrows denote a directional change in a given scenario characteristic. The analysis is based on scenario narratives and extrapolations from similar existing research. The directionality is illustrative and for scenario-building purposes only. Slowdown of technological and human capital developmentA simultaneous slowdown in technological innovation and human capital development stalls productivity growth. Economies struggle to sustain previous levels of prosperity, leading to stagnation in living standards and socioeconomic progress.Scenario 4: Productivity Drought Global Economic Futures: Productivity in 2030 16