Jobs of Tomorrow Technology and the Future of the Worlds Largest Workforces 2025

The business and management workforce includes roles such as accountants, lawyers, human resource professionals, operations managers, executive assistants and business processing workers. This job family makes up around 7% of the global workforce, with higher concentrations in higher-income economies. The increasing ability to do many of these jobs remotely (alongside rising global connectivity and education rates16 and the growing capability of AI to perform elements of this work)17 creates an uncertain outlook for this workforce. Projections include large productivity gains, increased ability for developing economies to use the workforce as a springboard to higher incomes, and wholesale job losses. AI agents have particular potential to transform this workforce. Existing cutting-edge agents combine image recognition with data processing to automate many tasks, such as processing invoices and payments, onboarding staff and inputting client data. Through process and task mining, these agents can then identify bottlenecks and missed value opportunities. Often, this can enable organizations to undertake tasks that could not have been achieved economically – such as technicalities on low-value invoices to optimize payments.18 This technology can enhance the productivity of the business and management workforce. It is unclear whether the boost in productivity would lead to increased revenue and/ or wages, or a reduced demand for this workforce. This technology could boost workforce productivity (potentially creating new value streams for the workforce to exploit), or organizations may prioritize cost savings through workforce reductions. The strategic objectives of organizations implementing this technology, alongside the development pathways prioritized by technology solutions providers, will determine which path is taken.2.6 Business and management The healthcare workforce makes up around 3% of the global workforce, but increases significantly with country income. Healthcare makes up less than 1.5% of the workforce in lower-income countries, around 2% in upper-middle-income countries and almost 10% in high-income countries. Healthcare workforce concerns include staffing shortages, workforce burnout and unrelenting demand for higher-quality, more accessible care. These concerns, alongside ageing populations generally increasing the demand for healthcare services, mean opportunities to automate tasks or otherwise alleviate demands on the healthcare workforce should enable the workforce to address unmet demand, rather than resulting in job losses. Agentic AI systems are now being used to automate many administrative tasks, including documentation, data entry and initial referral assessments. With user fatigue and pressure removed from these processes, accuracy has been shown to increase, while processing times can be reduced, sometimes by 70-90%.19 AI is also supporting predictive analytics, allowing healthcare professionals to have more targeted interventions.Robotics, combined with AI data processing, could also reshape the patient journey and subsequently the demands on the healthcare workforce. A combination of AI analytics (to target testing on high-risk populations for specific diseases), rapid diagnostic testing equipment and drones or quadrupedal robots could enable the physical logistics, data processing and scheduling elements of diagnostic testing to be automated. This could increase healthcare workforce productivity by increasing time spent on patient interactions.20 The combination of network technologies and AI can enhance the capabilities of the health workforce, especially in remote areas. Healthcare workers can use AI to identify relevant, expert knowledge – although risks of misinterpretation and incorrect advice continue to exist. To meaningfully enhance the capability of the healthcare workforce, tools to provide this expertise without these risks need to be developed. Similarly, better network technologies are enabling experts to reach geographically diverse patients either directly, or by engaging health workers without the specific expertise.2.7 Healthcare 3% of the global workforce is made up of the healthcare workforce. Jobs of Tomorrow: Technology and the Future of the World’s Largest Workforces 12