The global economy is changing at extraordinary speed, and education and training systems are struggling to keep up. Artificial intelligence is transforming jobs almost overnight. The green transition will create tens of millions of new ones. By 2050, 22 percent of the world will be over the age of 60, creating urgent shortfalls in health and care workers. And yet, despite a large and untapped global labor force, employers cannot find the talent they need. The result is a paradox: mass unmet demand for talent, alongside a vast untapped labor force.
The mismatch between what education systems produce and what labor markets need is now one of the biggest constraints on inclusive growth and productivity. Business leaders see this clearly. A growing share of executives now say their workforce will need to reskill within just a few years because of AI alone. Employers across regions report the same frustration: the skills they need are simply not available — not because people are unwilling to learn, but because the systems designed to prepare them have not kept pace. The rapid expansion of the global training market — now approaching half a trillion dollars — reflects both the urgency of the challenge and the scale of the opportunity.
A Structural Problem Demanding a Structural Response
Primary and secondary education are essential entry points for developing human capital. Literacy, numeracy, problem-solving, and socioemotional skills lay the foundation for lifelong learning. But post-secondary education, long seen as the gateway to advanced technical skills, is under mounting pressure. Competencies that once remained relevant for a decade or more can now become obsolete just a few years after graduation. This demands a fundamental shift: curricula must be dynamic rather than static, built around partnerships with industry that allow programs to evolve in near real-time. The ability to revise, retire and introduce programs rapidly is no longer a competitive advantage but a basic requirement. Employers must adapt too. They can no longer rely only on initial qualifications and must invest in continuous workforce development to stay competitive. Firms can directly deliver training, signal emerging skills demands, co-design curricula with education institutions, provide apprenticeships, support industry-recognized certifications, or co-finance continuous workforce development.
There are three compelling reasons why the private sector must be a co-architect of skills systems.
Speed. Firms at the technological frontier know which skills are emerging, which are becoming obsolete, and how fast. In Spain, the Santander Open Academy now offers hundreds of free courses in AI and cybersecurity, reaching millions of learners in a single year. No traditional curriculum development process moves at that pace.
Signal clarity. When companies invest their own resources in training, they reveal what no survey can: which skills translate into real productivity and quality employment. The rise ofindustry certifications from Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, Google, Cisco, and Salesforce — highly valued in technology careers — is a trend that will only accelerate. In the Philippines, the business process outsourcing industry’s pivot to cloud and AI is boosting demand for Google Career Certificates and AWS certifications, which the government is folding into the national qualifications framework.
Scale. Large firms and industry coalitions possess the infrastructure, digital platforms, global networks to deploy high-quality learning at a scale that academic institutions often cannot reach by themselves.
But Industry Cannot Do This Alone
Industry designs training around current and near-term needs but providing market-relevant skilling is not enough. What is taught must lead to credentials that are recognized, portable, and aligned with national qualification standards. On its own, industry training may also miss those beyond its immediate reach: informal workers, care workers, workers in shrinking sectors, and small firms lacking training budgets. Closing these gaps requires public stewardship that safeguards not only the quality and portability of training programs but also their breadth and reach.
The European Qualifications Framework, together with the European Union’s emerging approach to micro-credentials, offers a useful reference: a common structure that allows national systems to map short, industry-driven training onto recognized qualification levels, making them more transparent and portable across borders.
From Ambition to Action
Latin America and the Caribbean illustrate both the risks of inaction and the potential gains from getting this right. The region has abundant natural resources, a young population, and rising connectivity. Yet half of its workforce remains trapped in low‑productivity informal employment, with women and young people disproportionately affected. Approximately 17 million jobs in the region could benefit from AI-driven productivity gains but cannot, because workers lack access to computers or the internet at work. Â
A new wave of initiatives is beginning to change that. In Argentina, the World Bank Group is supporting a university-company partnership model in the mining sector, projected to create more than 10,000 direct jobs and 50,000 indirect jobs by 2033. In Malaysia, as the number of workers in the digital economy grows and robot adoption reshapes labor markets across East Asia, IFC is supporting the Asia Pacific University of Technology and Innovation (APU)  to expand access to high-quality technology and innovation programs across the region, under the leadership of local industrial groups.
These examples share a common architecture: training designed from the outset around decent jobs, not enrollment numbers, as the measure of success. Industry as a co-pilot, demand shapes content in real time, and partnerships among firms, governments, and development finance institutions help extend benefits beyond large employers to suppliers, small firms, and communities.
This approach is central to the World Bank Group’s strategy on education and skills. It will be a defining theme of the 10th World Bank Group Global Education Conference in Madrid this week.  The skills gap is acute and growing — but so is the evidence that when industry leads the way in designing the skills curricula, it can help close this gap.
Source : World Bank
