The world’s next jobs crisis won’t come from AI replacing people but from failing to prepare them. Universities and education systems writ large are still teaching for the world we had, not the one we’re entering. From the U.S. to South Africa, the real disruption ahead must not just be about technology but job readiness as well.
At the IMF and World Bank Annual Meetings in Washington D.C. last week, World Bank President Ajay Banga posed one urgent question: What happens when the next generation of workers shows up — and they can’t find jobs?
“In just the next 10 to 15 years, 1.2 billion young people will enter the workforce — vying for roughly 400 million jobs,” Banga warned. “Four young people will step into the global workforce every second over the next decade.”
Some economists argue that automation could outpace job creation. Banga counters with pragmatic optimism, arguing that countries can create new jobs at scale if they move fast enough. He highlights five industries with the most significant potential for job growth — from tourism and energy to healthcare — but warns that success will hinge on education reform, capital investment, and basic infrastructure. Ultimately, progress depends on investing in both people and on stronger demand-side growth. After all, even the best-trained graduates will face barriers without the latter.
The stakes could not be higher. “The developing world is home to the next generation of workers, entrepreneurs, and innovators — a demographic dividend that, if nurtured, will power global growth for decades,” Banga wrote earlier this year. Unless those aspirations are met, the risk of greater frustration, political backlash, and social unrest will only grow.
A Crisis of Readiness, Not Just Job Creation
Across both advanced and emerging economies, however, a paradox is taking shape: even as automation displaces some jobs, new ones are emerging — yet employers can’t find people ready to fill them.
In a survey of 1,600 U.S.–based HR leaders and employees, Hult International Business School found that 98% of employers struggle to find talent — yet 89% still shy away from hiring recent graduates. Respondents cited a lack of real-world experience, weak teamwork, low adaptability, and the high cost of training. On average, companies said they could save more than $4,500 per employee if they hired more experienced people who could “hit the ground running.”
Writing in The Independent, the University of Bath’s Farooq Mughal warned that the hurdles facing new graduates “signal a deeper breakdown in the long-held promise that education leads to opportunity.”
“The Curriculum Moves Too Slowly”
If Banga articulates the scale of the challenge, Tiara Pathon is showing what job readiness looks like in practice. Pathon, Microsoft’s Director for AI Skilling across Africa, is based in South Africa, where youth unemployment hovers near 60%, among the highest rates in the world. Her passion for job readiness is personal. Watching how her own children use technology in school, she’s seen how quickly tools evolve, and how slowly education systems follow.
“Our education system is not preparing young people for the world of work,” She tells me. “Curriculum cycles take too long. By the time new courses are approved, industry demand has already moved on.”
Microsoft’s AI Skilling Initiative is one of the company’s most extensive global training programs. The initiative aimed to train one million South Africans in AI skills by 2026. It hit that target six months early.
“We trained 1.2 million people by June 2025,” Pathon notes, from half a million learners across 100 rural sites to tens of thousands reached through virtual webinars.
Training at the Speed of Job Demand
Pathon doesn’t see large-scale skilling programs as a substitute for university reform. Universities, she argues, provide the deeper, accredited credentials that industry still relies on.
“We can train millions,” she says, “but unless universities evolve, the skills gap will just reopen.”
Some universities are starting to adapt, experimenting with faster curriculum cycles and industry-aligned credentials. That shift is essential, Pathon tells me. Higher education, she argues, must find a middle ground between rapid skilling programs and multi-year degrees — offering 16- to 40-hour modules in AI literacy, cybersecurity, and data analytics, measured by job readiness rather than seat time.
“We’re not going to fix this by waiting for curriculum reform,” she adds. “The workaround is stackable, industry-recognized credentials on top of degrees, so students are employable now.”
A Blueprint for Job-Ready Universities
This month, Microsoft, the German Agency for International Co-operation (GIZ), and South Africa’s Department of Higher Education launched the V-Digital platform for all 50 technical colleges. Built on Microsoft’s community-training architecture, it offers five demand-led pathways — data analytics, cybersecurity, software development, cloud computing, and content design — and even works offline, allowing rural learners to download lessons and sync progress later.
Universities can take inspiration from such agile programs. In doing so, they need to continue to rethink how they incorporate AI. Rather than banning tools like ChatGPT, institutions could require their responsible use.
That could mean everything from proper referencing and editing to using AI tools to strengthen adaptability and critical thinking within specific subjects. Pathon’s team, for example, is prototyping Policy-P, an AI agent trained on South African law to help civil servants and entrepreneurs navigate regulation and compliance questions.
“Technology, like this, can cut the red tape that once made starting a business impossible,” Pathon says. “What used to take months now takes days, that’s how youth are creating their own jobs instead of waiting for them.”
And as AI continues to develop, new small language models that run on minimal computing power could further expand access, especially in regions where energy and connectivity remain constraints.
Other AI tools can play a similar role inside universities, turning theory into practice. They can help students apply lessons to real-world challenges through simulations, projects, and peer-to-peer collaboration: the kind of experiential learning that builds creativity, agility, and adaptability. These are exactly the skills that everyone from Mark Cuban to the World Economic Forum identifies as essential to employability. The goal isn’t to turn everyone into a coder but to pair digital fluency with the human judgment AI can’t replicate.
A Call to Arms to Ready Youth For Jobs
Banga was right to sound the alarm: four young people will enter the global workforce every second this decade. Whether they thrive will depend on creating new jobs as well as investing in job readiness.
Corporate training programs like Microsoft’s aren’t a silver bullet when it comes to readiness, and often serve commercial as well as social goals. Progress also depends on practical enablers like reliable connectivity and university reform.
Ultimately, readiness and job creation aren’t mutually exclusive. A generation better equipped with technology and entrepreneurial skills can start businesses faster, employ others, and create work where none existed — helping absorb the 1.2 billion young people expected to enter the labor force in the coming decade.
“Training alone doesn’t create jobs — partnerships do,” Pathon reminds us. “We have to align what students learn with where opportunities exist — and we have to move faster.”
If countries can turn education reform into employment, the demographic dividend could be transformative. If not, the frustration of educated yet idle youth will become combustible.