Oecd Skills Outlook 2019 Thriving In A Digital World

Economies and societies are undergoing digital transformations that bring both opportunities and challenges and countries’ preparedness to seize the benefits of a digital world is largely dependent on the skills of their population.

Economies and societies are undergoing digital transformations that bring both opportunities and challenges and countries' preparedness to seize the benefits of a digital world is largely dependent on the skills of their population. This edition of the OECD Skills Outlook aims to understand how policies, and in particular those that affect skills development and use, can shape the outcomes of digital transformation and translate into more equally shared benefits among and within countries' populations. Ensuring people can benefit from new technologies and are not left behind requires a comprehensive and co-ordinated policy effort. This package of co-ordinated policies needs to simultaneously promote digitalisation where the latter increases productivity and well-being, and otherwise cushion its negative impacts.

Lifelong learning is key if individuals are to succeed in labour markets and societies shaped by megatrends such as increases in life expectancy, rapid technological changes, globalisation, migration, environmental changes and digitalisation, as well as sudden shocks like the COVID-19 pandemic.

World-renowned economist Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum, explains that we have an opportunity to shape the fourth industrial revolu­tion, which will fundamentally alter how we live and work. Schwab argues that this revolution is different in scale, scope and complexity from any that have come before. Characterized by a range of new technologies that are fusing the physical, digital and biological worlds, the developments are affecting all disciplines, economies, industries and governments, and even challenging ideas about what it means to be human. Artificial intelligence is already all around us, from supercomputers, drones and virtual assistants to 3D printing, DNA sequencing, smart thermostats, wear­able sensors and microchips smaller than a grain of sand. But this is just the beginning: nanomaterials 200 times stronger than steel and a million times thinner than a strand of hair and the first transplant of a 3D printed liver are already in development. Imagine “smart factories” in which global systems of manu­facturing are coordinated virtually, or implantable mobile phones made of biosynthetic materials. The fourth industrial revolution, says Schwab, is more significant, and its ramifications more profound, than in any prior period of human history. He outlines the key technologies driving this revolution and discusses the major impacts expected on government, business, civil society and individu­als. Schwab also offers bold ideas on how to harness these changes and shape a better future—one in which technology empowers people rather than replaces them; progress serves society rather than disrupts it; and in which innovators respect moral and ethical boundaries rather than cross them. We all have the opportunity to contribute to developing new frame­works that advance progress.

The OECD Skills Strategy provides a strategic and comprehensive approach for ensuring that people and countries have the skills to thrive in a complex, interconnected and rapidly changing world. The updated 2019 OECD Skills Strategy takes account of the lessons learned from applying the original skills strategy in 11 countries since 2012...

The 2019 edition of the OECD Employment Outlook presents new evidence on changes in job stability, underemployment and the share of well-paid jobs, and discusses the policy implications of these changes with respect to how technology, globalisation, population ageing, and other megatrends are transforming the labour market in OECD countries.