Long-term economic restructuring of supply chains, deepening geopolitical fragmentation and rapid advances in artificial intelligence are disrupting business models, and the global workforce. While businesses are under immense pressure to adapt, workers face job loss, de-skilling, and growing health pressures.
How can today’s workers remain productive members of society and avoid the risk of falling behind in a rapidly changing economy?
This session was developed in collaboration with The National.
This is a livestreamed session. Please arrive 15 minutes early as the doors will close at the scheduled time.
At Davos 2026, “Workers in the Driver’s Seat” tackled how geopolitical fragmentation, demographic shifts, and AI’s “exponential progression” are reshaping work—and risking social polarization if dignity and security erode. Adecco CEO Denis Machuel argued the central challenge is ensuring “AI doesn’t happen to people,” noting workers’ readiness outpaces employers: 83% want control of skills development, and 71% say their AI training is more advanced than what companies provide. ITUC’s Luc Triangle urged early, genuine participation: workers must be “part of the design process,” not informed at the end, and warned against algorithmic management that blacklists workers or normalizes intrusive monitoring. European Commission EVP Roxana Mînzatu framed trust as the fulcrum, pointing to stronger collective bargaining and a forthcoming EU “Quality Jobs Act,” alongside a “skills guarantee” piloted in automotive to prevent avoidable displacement. Welspun Living CEO Dipali Goenka offered a factory-floor view: AI can reduce fatigue and improve output when workers co-create solutions, supported by multiskilling, women’s advancement, and community empowerment. The session converged on a shared imperative: invest in continuous adult learning, share productivity gains, and build job security systems so transitions feel navigable, not catastrophic.
Hello and welcome from the World Economic Forum. My name is Mina Arabi. I'm the editor in chief of the National and I'm delighted to be moderating this session. Welcome to everybody with us here in the room. And welcome to those of you joining us live online. If you are commenting on this session, please use hashtag 26. And this conversation workers in the driver's seat is so important at a time when we have incredible change. Economic restructuring, talks of tariffs, visa regulations changing overnight, AI being introduced in the workforce, amount of uncertainty and unpredictability is incredible. Not only is this about productivity, not only is this about the bottom line, it's about people's lives, how they find contentment and a sense of purpose through work, which is hugely important. The top risk in the Global Risk Report for ten year span 2026 to 2036, 67% of respondents in the Global Risk Report survey said social polarization and often social polarization can come about when people cannot have dignity through the work that earns them a good living. So this topic is hugely important, not only economically, politically, but of course, importantly, societal. And so I'm really proud as the National to be partnering with the World Economic Forum on this conversation. And we have an amazing panel here to discuss all of these matters. Immediately to my left is Dipali Goenka, who's the CEO and Managing Director of Welspun Living. Next to her is Luke Ryan, who is general secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation Ituc. And right next to him is Roxana Manzato, who is the executive vice president for social Rights, Skills and Quality Jobs and preparedness at the European Commission. And next to her is Dennis Maxwell, who is CEO of the Adecco Group and also a member of the International Business Council. The World Economic Forum has these great communities. International Business Council I'm proud to be a media leader, part of the International Media Council. So it's great to to be here. So I want to start with you, Dennis, please. When you look at different sectors, different regions, your company works globally. Where are you seeing the greatest pressures now on workforces?
Well, actually, if you look at the four big, trends that are that are impacting the the world of work, and you mentioned some of them, you know, the the geopolitical uncertainty, you know, the demographic shifts and aging populations. If you think about, the new world, new shapes of, of labor employment that are, that are coming in and, and the, of course, the AI revolution, all that weighs on the workers across the world. And there's there's no place from what we see, we, you know, we we work in 60 countries. We don't see any place where people are immune from these, you know, big forces that that are happening. Maybe one word around AI, because this is the thing that is happening probably the fastest and the scale at which it comes, we haven't been used to humans are not used to exponential. We know how to to manage linear progression. We're not used to managing exponential progression. And that's what we are seeing today. And the speed at which, companies need to be agile to manage, you know, this, this big AI revolution. And for people also to be agile is this is fundamental. And it's all about how do we ensure that AI doesn't happen to people, but that, that we embark everyone if we want to create to your point, if we if we want to create social cohesion and if we want peaceful societies, we have to ensure social cohesion.
I mean, you mentioned this idea of AI not happening to people. So I want to follow up with you on that, because what do you see are the the main issues that businesses underestimate when it comes to workers?
I think two things. First of all, and we talk about, you know, we work with 100,000 clients across the world. And when we talk to clients, they are a bit lost in translation where the speed of AI coming in. So they've done a lot of pilots and stuff, but they haven't scaled and in most cases they haven't embarked their, their workers into that transformation. They've pushed stuff, right, a bit, sometimes a bit randomly. And they are not intentional. So the biggest risk is for companies not to strategize the way the workforce is going to be transformed, because we've got to think about, you know, companies being now a hybrid world where workers work alongside digital workers or AI agents. And and it's a totally different way of thinking. And, and today, you know, in the world of work, humans are messy. I mean, we know that, you know, it's the org chart doesn't describe how the work is actually done. Right?
Right. Tell that to my HR.
If you want to apply AI without without understanding how work is being done, people suffer. And one thing that, that we discovered, we've made a study across, you know, 20 or 37,000 workers across more than 30 countries. What they're telling us is, and I want to have the the number, right. 83% of workers want to take control of their skills development. So there is an appetite for workers to be, you know, part of the story. 71% of the workers are telling us that they have that their the way they train themselves on AI is more advanced than what their employer provides to them. So I think companies underestimate the appetite. There is a fear, but there is also appetite to go with the flow from for many workers.
And I think it's when AI is positioned as a tool that can make them more efficient rather than replace them. That people get most excited about the use of AI in the workforce. And to your point that people then bring solutions rather than being given the solutions. Look, I want to turn to you. So I mean, we're hearing really the issue of AI being a major issue, but geopolitical uncertainty, of course, is playing out. How are you seeing these pressures on the ground playing out on the ground? And what's the biggest risk for workers themselves to feel that actually they are just being given AI tools to use, or the geopolitical uncertainty is affecting them directly?
Well, it's not the first time. Good morning. It's not the first time that workers in the history are faced with technological evolution. It's just a process that comes back and that returns every ten, 20 years. It's the way how we prepare it and how we deal with it. And so for us as trade unions, what is really key is absolutely no opposition against what's going on. But being part of the process and what we see too often is that workers feel that they are absolutely not part of the design process in the sector or in the company when AI is introduced. And if you want to take away fear, if you want to create ownership on AI, well then you cannot do that by only informing them at the end of the process what the what AI will mean for them, and who will lose its job, who will keep its job? Who will have to do more education or skilling to to be to remain in the company? It doesn't work like that. Nobody in this room or life would expect to be informed and not being part of the process. When it's about AI or any technical technological evolution. So what we ask first is let us be part of the design process, make workers part of the process of design in a company. Also labor unions, we need to be part of that process. That's one point. Secondly, sure, there is a huge skills agenda, but I challenge companies all the time. And I say, you know that in five years time, the competencies that you need in your company will be different with the competencies that you have today. Well, what do you do today to prepare your workforce for the competencies in five years time? Well, then often it's silent because they don't do it. They wait. And then if there is a fallout of workers, they don't see it as their responsibility. They put it on the society. Well, that's wrong. That's wrong because we cannot mess around with the workforce today in the world, because we have, in many parts of the world a shortage of labour. Every worker is needed in the economy of today, maybe not in the company of today where you work today, maybe not in the sector where you work today, but maybe in another sector, maybe in another company. Well, let's prepare workers for whatever job. And then the third point, I think crucial in this whole debate is and it's not employability. Employability is important, but it's about job security. Job security means that workers get in, in, in, in a, in a country, a kind of guarantee you will always have a job. We will pick you up. And that gives them more confidence and trust. Okay. I'll go throughout this process and we'll see. But if I feel if I lose my job, there will be I will be picked up by the system, by government and by, by, by, by a system that exists on education. And I will soon get another job. So this issue of job security is extremely important also to get trust from workers on, on the technological evolution. So in that sense, we always talk about, people as our main, capital in the company. Well, I think we don't invest enough today in people. We have to invest more in competencies, we need to invest more in strategy, and we need to make them part of processes, which is today often not the case.
In addition to the technological revolution that we're living through. And you're right, it's not the first, but it's the exponential growth. What are the other pressures that workers are feeling on a global scale?
Well, when we focus, there are many pressures, but when we talk about AI, there are a number of challenges. For instance, the privacy issue, on on what do we do with data, but also what, value do we give on to algorithmic management? What we can't accept is, AI introduced, for instance, in HR processes where AI, will make an evaluation of the performances of each and individual, each individual worker and even say, okay, this worker is underperforming, should be on the blacklist for a dismissal. Yeah. Well, those kind of processes that are risks with AI, we don't accept. And that's also why we support the EU approach when it's about, how do we have to regulate AI? How do we regulate the digital evolution and revolution? That needs to be some regulation. If you don't regulate AI, this is indeed a bad process. And we then, might have serious problems also with workers feeling threatened by by these AI.
I want to turn to you Dipali, because when we're thinking about the workers and the processes being part of the design process, I mean, as a business leader, how are you thinking about that in terms of design and also turning around the business and making sure that workers are part of it at a time of uncertainty? What are the lessons you've learned?
So, first of all, I think I want to address one thing about AI and I think, you know, my colleague spoke about it. I want to just give you one anecdote. You know, when we, when we talk about us, we deploy around 20,000 people across, we are talking about India, which is, you know, where 30% of the population out of 1.4 billion people is the young, the youth you're talking about. And two, 95 million people, the youth live in the rural part of the country. That's the dynamics of the demographics that we talk about. And when you talk about AI, I actually manufacture, we as Welspun manufacture a million units of towels every day. And there's a towel counting process. And, you know, it was done by human. Right. And when you when the humans do it, there's a human fatigue. We you know and my teams did it. The supervisors came out with a solution to say how we can incorporate AI in it so that the towel counting can be done so that the fatigue can be overcome. So I'm saying that AI is such an interesting thing when it just gets harmoniously placed into with people, it becomes very complementary. And I think that's very, very important when we talk about culture. So let me just give you a few things in some ideas. So, we have the blue collar associates out of that. Now we have 30% women. And I feel the women attrition rate is around 5% vis a vis the male is around 20% in India. There's a lot of migrant workers as well. We're getting more women in the workforce, where we are also making more supervisors who are women. Because if your supervisor is a man, there's a lot of differences in India and you're working in the rural, let's not forget that. So that's one aspect of what we are doing. The second important culture that we're building is multi-skilling. In the times where the tariffs are there in the dynamic world that we are there, you have the fixed and the variable costs, how you can multi-skill people so that, you know, if and with textiles it involves dexterity, it involves knowledge, it involves experience. How are you multi-skilling them when you're talking about AI and smart factories? We are upskilling them. So there are a couple of things that we are doing, you know, so we also upskilling our people for the smart factories. We are looking at a connected factory. You know, we have our spinning which has a printer. We have our, you know, weaving, which has a data log. We have a processing which has a, you know, kind of another tendra, you know, it's all connected. So these people are actually upskilled to understand the dynamics themselves. So these are a couple of things that we are doing. One more important thing is our own blue collar associates become the quality circle heads. They are looking at the quality and the responsible for the quality. When you talk about innovation as a textile company, you know, we might sit here and talk about innovation, but there are a lot of things that that person on the floor, that floor worker would know better than any one of us. So we have something called Manthan, which is something, you know, it's kind of, you know, it is about, you know, finding that great idea. And we recognize those people. And there are such great ideas that have come in that have increased my efficiencies by 10%. So these are couple of things. The quality circles. There's Manthan, the supervisors, the other things that we're doing are we have women coming in from different parts of the world. They're anorexic. We are in a young country. Let's not forget there's a mental health issues as well. We have an open university where the women are girls, you know, they're 18. You know, they just come in when they're 18 and 19. You know, you are upskilling them. You're giving them university exposure. You're giving them what they want so they can actually continue to grow in their path. So there are lot of things that we are doing. And we've seen that kind of a elevation that's happening because.
But can I ask you and that's that's a great example of just on the ground and again people finding the solutions that work for them at work. But for example, when you automated the towel count, did that mean that you had to let some people go who traditionally that was their job or they were now doing other jobs?
You know, the interesting thing is you will have attrition. Even if you calculate, if it's 5%, you will actually redeploy those people in different things. So that's the way you actually utilize your people, because you already have that culture in those people. And we also have a training. We have an excellent center. We also have something called a skilling center for Weavers and Spinners and Associates as well, where, you know, shown how to run the loom. So the continuous training also is a very key aspect to what we do.
So training you've mentioned quite a bit. Yeah. But also this idea of productivity. So how do you sustain productivity at a time when there are these changes. So in an ideal world and it sounds great, the work that you've done is that people are all bought into it. But there are always the silent opposers to change, right? Whether they're they're uncertain. How do you manage that and how should businesses be thinking about those silent workers? For a while we had quiet quitting came into the lexicon after Covid. So how do you deal with that?
So you know what? Now I will use AI and technology to our good. Now what do we do? We have the detail of computer. And you know, when we talk about a cut and sue lines, you have something called, you know, and these are IaaS. You know, these are cut and Sue that's the smart, you know, operations. You know, the same person will come and sit in the same shift. You can actually monitor what they are producing that day, whether they're taking a bigger break. Their lunch breaks are bigger, their water breaks are bigger. You know, you keep on managing that and seeing what the productivity is going. So you know what the interesting thing is? I know AI is something that we are talking about where the jobs will go, they'll be redeployed and repurposed, but we can reuse it and repurpose that technology to see the people who are working and who are not working as well. And that actually then a lot of counseling will be done, a lot of communication will be done as well.
I think you have you have some thoughts on the panel.
That's exactly what I.
Was saying.
Before about control. And a little bit of regulation wouldn't be bad because if you can control how long I go to the toilet, well, I don't like that as a worker. So it's not that, that I would misuse it, but it's a kind of the feeling that I then get of the the big brother sees everything what I do. So. And that's why I say, okay, there is certainly potential in AI and we agree on that. But that needs also to be some boundary set on how far can you use AI in the workplace to control the issue, to control workers in their almost second to second activity?
We don't do that. Actually. The thing is, you at least give them breaks, right? And if those breaks are longer, you can you come come to know where they are spending more time. So it's not about that. You know, the breaks that they take. It's about how much time. Because let's not forget, these are the youth you're talking about, the youth who have a lot of time to while you have a lot of time to talk and distracted, you have to come. You get them to repurpose themselves. It's a very different world. In India, you're working in rural, so that's the way you have to continue to look at it as well.
And I think this this is a natural kind of tension that happens in the workplace, because you do have the capability of knowing much more about your workers now. But also to your point, Luke, it's not about the exact time, the clocking in, clocking out, because you can actually get people demotivated as a consequence.
But you communicate, you take care of their health, you're giving them insurance coverage, you're taking care of their families, you're giving them housing. If you're taking care of people, you also have to say that they deliver, right? And you also deliver the right sense. There's a there's a compliances that you have and you're working in business. Right. You also have to look at the productivity. So you're not looking at that managing that. They're going to the loo. It's like about taking that break which is longer. You're looking at whether the productivity is better or not is what we put on the table.
Okay. Roxana, you've waited patiently as we've talked here, and I've kept you for last, because I want to ask you, I mean, first of all, governments are facing these sorts of pressures, but on a large scale when they think about the population and the workforce. And do you find that labor policies and maybe we focus on, across Europe, but also generally labor policies, are they still fit for purpose? What changes do we need to make in the regulation? Is it protecting from overuse of surveillance using through automation or AI? Or is it about how do we ensure that workers are reskilled? What's your take on this?
Well, we face the same challenge of being agile. And it's not just governments, the European institutions worldwide. We're looking at the need for agility companies in people's lives, but also in policies. And I mean, it would be, it would be a bit superficial on my side to say, yes, labor policies and labor markets are right. And we are keeping, you know, we are on the right track and our rhythm is is the right one. There is always, you know, this tension and this dynamic between the technological, the geopolitical geoeconomic evolutions and the way we are adapting with our policies. That being said, and I'm Commissioner for Social rights and I'm working closely with employers and trade unions alike. We are in a moment where we are talking a lot about being human centric and the fact that we have more technology, that we will have more AI as part of our processes of our productivity. Does beg the question, how do we stay human centric? Because in the end, that is, that is one of the main challenges posed by by the introduction of artificial intelligence in, in our production processes. So with that, I would just give you an example that we that on the way that we deal with it in Europe, we have a big debate about the quality of jobs, about the quality of employment and what it is, what what does it mean to have a quality job in the context of human working with an AI agent, in the context of having AI as both an opportunity to boost productivity, to simplify, but also sometimes a risk to privacy, you know, to being, analyzed, scrutinized, beyond what is needed for. Because, of course, AI is a tool for now, and it can be used for excellent purposes that would deliver economically. But then again, it depends on, you know, how each organization deploys this tool. So we are preparing, the launch of a Quality Jobs Act, this December 2026. We have strong ongoing debates that have started between our social partners in Europe, the employers and the trade unions on what it should entail. So again, the discussion is a lot about keeping our policies up to date in skilling. And I will talk a bit about that as well. But it is also about the quality of of employment. And I want to refer to one important word that was mentioned here again in relation to AI and its opportunities. And this word is trust. If you ask me, we need to create more trust. AI is bringing hope, is bringing immense potential. But we also need trust. Trust on the worker side, trust on the small company side. Because of course, it's one thing to think about deploying AI in certain sectors in certain companies. But let's not forget this is a transformation for the whole of the workforce and for the whole of the economy. We are not talking here only about, you know, industrial processes. We're talking about construction, about services, about every type of sector and job and company that we can imagine. How will this transformation occur and be felt in these different working at European Commission? Of course, I have this diverse landscape in, in, on my on my, on my table, looking at the labor markets and the challenges, looking at Nordic countries where we have excellent social dialogue, excellent work between the employers and the and the trade unions. And I think this is one of the important element that can create trust. And this is something that we are also trying to strengthen in Europe because of the disruptions, because of the novelty, this kind of framework will help advance AI, for example, in a safe and both empowering way. But we are having a Europe of nations and economies with much less social fiber, with much bigger gaps between industry and workers, where it is more difficult to deploy and where things will happen a bit. You know, the power of the fittest, of the strongest. So it is important to create trust, to bring social dialogue, to have quality employment, because in the end, you know, we have such shortages in our, in our, in our labor force that we sometimes, connect with the lack of skills or with a, with a mismatch in skills. But there are sectors and I speak with again, I'm a commissioner for all sectors, people that work in agriculture, that work in transport and logistics. They are Europeans or third country nationals. The quality of employment is extremely important is not only the the salary is not only the, you know, the right skills, it's also about working conditions. So we need to have this overall dialogue. But if you if you would ask me what we are trying to do to not to bring agility but to, to reduce this gap, the way that that this can be done, in my opinion, is exactly not the policy making necessarily of the governments. It's not only the policy making of governments, but it also has to be accompanied by social dialogue and by this strengthening of of of social partners. For me, this is one of the routes to, to to take.
I know you want to come in. So, so go ahead. And I have a follow up question.
I just wanted to comment to give you an example. You talk about quality jobs and, give an example that what we've the way we've, I think increased the quality of, of some of the jobs that we have, we have a lot of recruiters because part of the things that we do is to match the world of work with the world of people and recruit for our clients. And, and of course, our recruiters heard, you know, everywhere, like on your job is going to be displaced by AI because the AI is good at matching, right? What what we did was to really set with our recruiters and say, yes, AI will come in, but let's let's talk about the way you do the work every day, and let's look at the tasks where you think you have as a human the most added value and the task that are burdensome, that where you you lose time, you know, it's it's putting stress on on you know, on you because you have so many calls to give, etc.. And that's how you've put agents on the things that were more transactional and keep the, you know, the time of the recruiter in the human to human connection. So it's not replacing the actual interview where it's the it's the dialogue that matters. And where as humans, we're good at and do all the other transaction things done by agents. And we do that fundamentally. First of all, you improve the quality of the overall dialogue with the with the with the candidates, but you also improve the, the daily quality of, for the, of the job itself as perceived by the recruiters. So it's I mean, this is not rocket science. It requires a dialogue. You know, we of course we had dialogue with the with with the unions and, and the way we organize that, but that that's an improvement in the quality of the jobs.
Can I just jump in here? You know, we are doing the same thing in India. You know, there are a whole lot of CV's that come in, the resumes that come in, the technology and the algorithms. We actually look at them. And there's an agent AI, you know, who basically interviews. And then we get the report and then the, you know, human steps in to interview them. That actually process hastens up the entire recruitment process as well. You know, I think that's what we've already started doing in India as well for a senior people to that's the right way to take forward. Yeah.
Roxanne, you spoke about thank you for that point, Roxanne. You spoke about trust. And I think a big part of trust is about transparency. So explaining the processes of where they come in. Tell us more about how you think this idea of trust can be developed beyond just regulations. When you speak of the social dialogue, how does it get framed? I mean, through the commission, how are you thinking about this idea of trust? Because I think that's a that's a global issue.
Yeah. Trust social fiber. Again, the EU is such an interesting, has such an interesting landscape where we can analyze within our different member states what works better and what can be improved. Well, in the EU, I think one of our most cherished yes, pieces of legislation is the minimum wage directive, which has a very important chapter in it and is a chapter about boosting social dialogue and collective bargaining. And it's a tool that helps our member states that have collective bargaining below 80%. Set a plan, set some goals, and work towards improving this collective bargaining. And people. I come from Romania, I come from Eastern Europe. You cannot understand the value of building this kind of social fiber, and it's not going to happen overnight. And you cannot compare with, I don't know, Denmark or with countries or Sweden that have a century history long of of working together. But dialogue because this is Davos and this period of dialogue, that is the motto of this dialogue. Dialogue is quite, quite, quite essential. But I wouldn't want to miss the opportunity to match this strong message that I'm giving that we are trying to to boost social dialogue across Europe with just the idea that we do need a skills revolution. Of course, this is a big word, but again, bear in mind the skills that people need to work with AI to reset in an industry that maybe changes due to technological decarbonization, geopolitical shifts. They are skills needed by a worker that is in his 60s. 50s 40s women, men, blue collar, white collar, sometimes in commission where of course we discussed with semiconductor. We discussed with again construction, automotive, defense. Biotech. We have we are we are of course focusing on certain sectors that have competitive, high economic added value. But then I come back and tell my colleagues, I tell our ministers of labor that know it very well, let's not forget, we are having a labor labor market of more than 220, million workers across. They are all feeling. They are all sensing the fear, you know, the uncertainty for the present, for the future. And then what they need to, to be empowered is. And I want to emphasize, because it was mentioned here, an investment in their skills. We have our union of skills strategy, which is again a new tool that we deployed, but which is about more than what I could give you as examples. And I will maybe give you examples, is about changing the mindset of adults, of youngsters, of teachers, of school education providers, about how skills are needed, not just, you know, in university and then from crisis to crisis, but like you take your vitamins, like you go to the doctor, we need to be able to update, to verify and update our skills every year, every now and then, so that we are agile so that we can help our people stay up to date with the transformations in the economy and in society. And again, skills not just for labor, but also skills for being resilient in a transforming societal model online and offline. This is a bigger discussion. Of course.
I want to open the floor for questions. Does anybody have a question? If so, please indicate to me and we'll make sure Mike comes to you. Okay. All right. We will continue the conversation. But please do indicate to me if you have a question, because we're we're running out of time. This this, I mean, to your point about the reskilling, and it's a big issue. There's a huge need for where the job requirement is and where workers are, and that reskilling is also a time when most companies are thinking about efficiency. You know, you're on the job and you're reskilling. And so the management of both Luke, I want to ask you about that. You know, how do we with the acceleration of the need for reskilling? This is not something that can take years in the process. How do you deal with that? And how do you encourage, as unions for workers to have the time and the resource, financial or time to do though?
Well, the question is actually more what does a society organize, to make workers indeed, ready for the jobs of tomorrow and to make them resilient? Because what I do not want to have is the putting the responsibility on the individual worker. You are falling out. What do you do now to get back into the labor market? That's wrong. It's about what do we as governments, as country, as society, organize in order to make sure that people are resilient and that people do not fall out or have immediately the possibility to pick up a new job. So I think. We see sometimes too often that, job losses are inevitable in this whole process and that people might indeed become unemployed for a longer period. Well, that's something which we do not accept and which we do not agree on. On the promenade here, there are a lot of companies and one of them say, okay, making the impossible possible. Well, it is absolutely possible to make sure that workers are picked up throughout this process. But you need to organize it. You cannot just leave it to the market. Yeah. And that's why I refer also to systems that already exist and to traditions. And I think it was Danny who referred to the Scandinavian countries to, to that. And you refer to the social fiber, to the necessity to have social dialogue. Well, I think countries and societies need to organize themselves to deal with those evolutions, technological evolution, to make sure, indeed, that workers are picked up. And obviously there is a responsibility for the worker to be ready to to take up the challenge of upskilling and reskilling. Sure. But I mean, the time is over already. A long time that you start at 20 years old, in a company, in a certain sector, and that you retire 40 years later or whatever, in the same company and in the same job. That time is over. So we know that and workers know that very well. So and in that sense, in, in, in many societies, there is a full understanding and also among workers that we need to be ready to pick up jobs and to pick up skills to be ready for jobs of tomorrow.
Okay. So making the impossible possible is actually a UAE government logo, so I'm glad that's stuck in your mind. Very happy I saw it the UAE, so that's great. So I just had to interject there. Danny, I know you wanted to come in and you were shaking your head, so I'm going to come back to you. But, Danny.
So back to what you said. Look, I think let me give you an example that happened some months ago. You have this large company, I won't mention it, that they fired 8000 people and they recruited 8000 people. And you go like. Really?
Yeah, exactly.
You know, maybe not all people could be moved from one job to another, but maybe half of them could be obscured. Reskilled transferred. If you go deep into the transferability of skills, if you go beyond the job description, if you go, what are the skills behind and what? And then matching the skills that you need there? And then how do you bridge the gap to go here? And it's not it's not because you're just of your, you know, good willingness. It's I mean, it costs money to do it to lay off people and it costs money to recruit. So I mean, this is something that where again, I think it's not only society. I think employers have to be intentional also from an economic perspective to to do that, that thing. And what's interesting, it works. And the best proof is that, you know, we are the world leader in career transition services. So we accompany when when companies lay off people. We're we're here to support and find new jobs, new opportunities for people. And that business, which is the number one by far the world leader, 58% of the people that we accompany find a new occupation. They don't go from from a role to the same role, you know, like almost two thirds are getting into new roles. So this is possible. So why is it possible outside of the company and why is it is it not possible inside.
The company? Don't get me wrong, Danny, because in my first introduction, in the beginning, I said clearly that companies need to know that the jobs of tomorrow or in five years time are different. And what do we do today to prepare the workforce? So I fully agree with what you say. Let's be clear on that point.
You were shaking your head.
You know, the thing is, India is a India and the growing markets are very, very different. Yeah, sure. And, you know, when you're talking about the roles that are happening, it's not just about manufacturing. There are roles like quick commerce. They're roles where you have it in urban, you have it in rural as well. And there are a whole lot of jobs that are, you know, competing with one another. And there is that distracted youth. How do you counsel them? How do you get them on the right path? The mental health is for real in India. The Gen Z is for real in India, the urban part of the country. So there are a whole lot of, you know, things that are moving that really, you know, there's, you know, there are a lot of things that you have to get them on together to really resolve this. India is a growing country and the manufacturing, the infrastructure, we grow our GDP at 6.7. The growth rate that we're talking about is actually, you know, it's a very fast growing country. It needs manpower. So I think the important thing for the companies like us is about looking at our people, looking at reskilling, upskilling, getting more people communicating, getting in, accessing more communities. I just want to leave with a small example, which we do in our communities as well. So one thing is about our own people. But, you know, when we have around 20,000 people, we also have the communities that we work with. And here we actually got the women into four where, when the husband's at work, the women actually upcycle around two tons of rags that we generate at a factory to create rugs and pillows out of it. They operating their own bank account, their children are going to school. And we in India. I mean, I believe that if a woman is empowered, the child is definitely going to school. The biggest challenge in our country is about literacy rate, and that's where we actually are working towards as well. So it's, you know, it's an entire ecosystem that comes into play. It's not just the people who are working on the machines in the factories, but it's their families, the extended, you know, people who are, you know, across, in your communities as well.
And I think that's the point we've been going around here is that the whole society gets impacted by these issues, which, you know, I think if you read our session description, it would feel very specific to just workers and resilience at the time of change. But it's entire societies affected. Okay. So we've only got a few minutes left. And I want to ask each of you the same question. And Oksana, I'm going to start with you. What's one specific policy or strategy that you're advocating for? Almost a call to action as we kick off Davos this year.
Yeah yeah yeah it's call to action.
Just look in my LinkedIn I have the post about this policy I think it's recent for me yesterday. And it's turning to it's becoming a good conclusion for what has said already is the skills guarantee. So inside the union of skills strategy that I've mentioned, we have a number of measures that we put forward. One of them is this skills guarantee for workers, which is about creating a model of intervention that allows for workers inside the same company, inside the same industry. Case may be shifting from an industry to another to remain in the labor market, to use some part of their skill skill sets, and to adapt and bring new skill sets on the table and be able to have a quality employment. So now we are piloting these skills guarantee for workers. It's not launched, for the automotive sector because Europe has a challenge with the automotive sector, a sector that has important quality jobs. More than 13 million jobs in Europe are related to automotive. We are seeing the challenges. We don't want to lose these jobs and these people and their skill sets, and we are now piloting to see what types of intervention, upskilling and reskilling can allow them to stay in this industry on a different product, move to a similar industry. So this is really important for us. The success of this skills guarantee, tool is a success of the workers because this is the end of the companies alike, because this is the topic of our panel as well.
Luke, what's your one policy?
I have A1A and one B. One A is making sure that workers, are part of the whole process of the technical technological evolution revolution, creating ownership because ownership creates trust. So that's one part. And the one B is what how do we redistribute the productivity gains that are generated by, by technological evolution and AI in particular? The inequality is year after year growing. We don't need more inequality because there will be productivity gains. And and who will receive the return of that. So what's going to be the part that workers receive of the productivity gains to which they contribute.
Thank you.
You know, for for me and for the Indian perspective, I will look at skilling, upskilling and growth for our people because that's an opportunity for the youth of our country. And I think that's something that we're working. Whether it could be in terms of technology, whether it's in terms of, you know, the skilling in, in relevance to manufacturing or the others, I think is one important thing. The other is diversity. When you talk about diversity, it's not just women. We also work with specially abled, you know, the deaf and mute. Also in our organization where in spinning we have the specially abled people working with us. So actually getting everybody together in that fold because you know, that's what would be very, very important to get them also into, our mix as well.
And finally yours.
I'll start with two numbers. Today, 4% of GDP in the OECD countries is spent on the education from 0 to 25. And from 25 onwards it goes down to 0.1%. So we go for four. We invest heavily at the beginning 4% of GDP and after that 0.1%, which is crazy when so much, so many things are happening afterwards. So I think on that government, private sector, you know, the academic world have to come together to your point to find ways to invest. And when we know that there are there there are schemes that work, then scale them.
And on that note, we have schemes that work. How do we scale them? But also important, the skills guarantee, the job guarantee, and it will lead to better societies for us all. Thank you very much for being here. Thank you for tuning in. And most importantly, thank you to my panel for an amazing conversation.
Thank you, thank you.