It is interesting to note that these statistics were taken from the work by Charles Rigborg Mann, A Study of Engineering Education, in 1918. That’s right—1918!

In 2025,107 years later, the World Economic Forum released their Future of Jobs Report and guess what?  They have reached the same conclusion.

The World Economic Forum report states that employers expect nearly 40% of workers’ core skills to change by 2030.  Due to new processes and automation advancement technical skills are becoming outdated faster than ever.

Here are the top five core skills reported by the World Economic Forum that employers need in their employees:

  • Analytic Thinking
  • Resilience, Flexibility and Agility
  • Leadership
  • Creative Thinking
  • Motivation and Self-Awareness

What is important to note here is that all five of the skills reported above as most necessary for employees to possess are Soft Skills. 

According to the World Economic Forum’s Future Jobs Report, 60% of employers expect digital access to transform their businesses by 2030, all because of AI. According to Elliot Grossbard, the report brings together over 1,000 leading employers, representing more than 14 million workers across 22 industry clusters and 55 economies worldwide.

As AI trends take over, it will bring into focus the need for employees to possess the ability to think analytically as well as creatively, along with self-awareness, motivation, resiliency, flexibility and agility, and leadership.

It took over 100 years, but we are finally recognizing that soft skills out trump hard skills!