Re-envisioning the workforce: Skilling today to thrive tomorrow

By Fiona Carney, Chief Marketing & Operations Officer, Microsoft Asia Pacific

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought on one of the most challenging years in our lifetime – spurring a global economic crisis and severely impacting job markets. Our calculations show that global unemployment rates in 2020 may reach the staggering figure of a quarter of a billion people.

At the same time, the demand for digital skills continues to grow, and we estimate that digital job capacity – or the total number of technology-oriented jobs – will increase nearly five-fold by 2025, rising from 41 million in 2020 to 190 million in 2025.

These numbers are in stark contrast, and they illustrate the digital skills gap that has accompanied the Fourth Industrial Revolution. We need to ensure greater access to digital skilling opportunities, and even more so in the Asia Pacific region, which is home…