CAMPAIGN: ''Youth voices Matter '' campaign. Share your videos about the future of skills
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SURVEY: Youth future - skills survey. Answer the survey: What skills are most important for the future?
PHOTO COMPETITION: Skills in Action Photo Competition. Capture inspiring moments in TVET and submit them.
INTERVIEWS
“I think young people today need to be more open-minded, more flexible, more adaptable,” said Francesca Fanelli, senior associate director of graduate career development at Columbia University.
Amid helping students and recent graduates navigate today’s competitive and rapidly changing job market, she spoke with UN News about some of the best ways to rise to the challenge.
Skills for an uncertain future
The World Economic Forum estimates that nearly 40 per cent of the skills workers rely on now could change or become outdated by 2030, making adaptability and lifelong learning more important than ever.
The answer is not to search for an “AI-proof” career, Ms. Fanelli said.
While some students are reconsidering their career choices and showing greater interest in skilled trades, which are widely viewed as less vulnerable to automation, she cautioned against basing decisions primarily on assumptions about which jobs will be least affected by AI and technological change.
Instead, she advises young people to focus on their interests and strengths while building a broad “toolkit” of transferable skills that can serve them across different roles throughout their careers.
Rather than committing themselves to a single career path, Ms. Fanelli encourages students to explore opportunities across different industries and remain open to new directions as the world of work continues to evolve.
With AI, ‘you’re still the problem solver’
While the future of work may be difficult to predict, Ms. Fanelli believes one thing is already clear: knowing how to use AI effectively is becoming a valuable workplace skill.
“AI literacy is a skill now that employers look for,” she says. “They want to make sure that people entering their office know how to use the tool.”
This includes knowing how to ask the right questions and write clear prompts while taking responsibility for fact-checking the information AI produces and deciding how to apply it.
“You have to use it as an assistant rather than as a problem solver,” Ms. Fanelli says. “You’re still the problem solver.”
Making AI work for you
For job seekers, AI can be useful throughout the application process. Ms. Fanelli recommends using it to analyse job descriptions, identify the skills employers are seeking, tailor application materials and prepare for interviews. The quality of the results largely depends on the quality of the instructions provided, she noted.
At the same time, she stressed that every application should reflect the candidate’s own experience and personality.
“Make sure it’s in your voice, that there are no phrases that you would never find yourself saying,” she advises.
Turning skills into a job
Yet, learning to use AI is only one part of preparing for the job market. For many students and recent graduates, the process itself can feel deeply uncertain and overwhelming.
“The whole process, I think, feels really overwhelming,” Ms. Fanelli says. “Students are just feeling overwhelmed by the process and discouraged before they even start.”
Pointing to data showing that it takes job seekers in the United States an average of 6.6 months to secure employment, she said sustaining a search over such a long period requires an effective strategy and the resilience to cope with rejection and self-doubt.
Many graduates also find themselves caught in what she described as a frustrating paradox. Despite having strong academic qualifications, they often worry that they lack practical experience, leaving them feeling “both overqualified and underqualified”.
Feeling unqualified does not necessarily mean that graduates lack the skills employers need. Ms. Fanelli said many underestimate the value of the abilities they have already developed during their studies.
“Every job posting, I still see collaboration, communication, teamwork. You’re most likely developing those skills in your education. You just have to think about how you can communicate those skills to an employer in a way that they’ll understand,” she said.
Beyond a dream job
As young people prepare for an uncertain future, Ms. Fanelli encourages them not to put too much pressure on themselves to find the “perfect” career.
“The dream job might not be exactly what you think it is,” she said.
Rather than searching for a role that fulfils every expectation, she advises young people to look for work that offers a sense of fulfilment in at least one respect, while recognising that purpose can come from many different parts of life.
Family, friendships, community and personal interests can all be sources of meaning, she said, and work does not have to provide everything.
“A job sometimes is just for financial stability, and that’s okay.”.
PUBLICATION: A moment of choice:Harnessing artificial intelligence for decent work. From the ILO. Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming many aspects of our economies and societies. I see its applications expanding rapidly across the world of work, reshaping how work is organized, how value
is created and how decisions are made. For the ILO and its constituents, this is a moment of both
excitement and disquiet.
On the one hand, AI can boost productivity and create new opportunities for workers and
enterprises alike. It can also improve public services and labour administration, including by
strengthening labour market governance and social protection systems. On the other hand, it raises
profound concerns about rights, equality and social inclusion – and about social justice more broadly.
Some voices have gone further, predicting a future marked by large-scale job scarcity, in which work
becomes the exception rather than the norm.
I do not dismiss these concerns. They reflect real anxieties about the pace and scale of
technological change. But I also believe that they risk overshadowing what we know from experience.
History has shown that technological change often goes hand in hand with market expansion and the
creation of new jobs in roles that were previously unforeseen.
It is clear that exposure to AI varies widely – across tasks, occupations and sectors, and depending
on skills, gender, age and national context. These differences reflect the persistent digital divides. While
some economies lead in AI investment and deployment, many low- and middle-income countries are
experiencing its effects more indirectly, through broader processes of digitalization rather than
large-scale AI development.
For this reason, I am persuaded that technological change is not an irresistible force producing
uniform outcomes. We are not powerless in the face of disruption. Policy choices, institutions and
governance matter. Human intelligence matters.
In adopting the ILO Centenary Declaration for the Future of Work (2019), we committed ourselves
to a human-centred approach to shaping the future of work. In the context of AI, I believe that this
means something very concrete: not assuming that technological progress will automatically advance
decent work and social justice, but taking a proactive role in shaping its direction – by managing risks
and harnessing opportunities in line with the ILO’s mandate.
As the Declaration of Philadelphia reminds us, work is not only a source of income. It is also a
foundation of dignity, autonomy and human development. How AI reshapes this meaning of work is
therefore central to a human-centred future of work.
For me, this reflection on harnessing AI for decent work is particularly timely. It takes place not
only in a context of uncertainty about the future of work, but also amid strained multilateralism and
democratic backsliding. As I have stressed in my previous reports to the International Labour
Conference, work and democracy are in a symbiotic relationship. It is for this reason that a sober and
evidence-informed examination of the implications of AI – and of the policy choices before us – is
essential. I am confident that the ILO, with its tripartite structure and normative mandate, is uniquely
placed to contribute to this examination. By bringing together governments, employers and workers,
we can help shape a human-centred approach to AI – one that keeps people, rights and dignity at the
core of this new chapter of technological progress.
Gilbert F. Houngbo
Director-General. Read the full report!
