Signals · Measurement
Signal: skills gaps are still the barrier boards can name
2026-09-30 · 4 min
The World Economic Forum’s latest jobs report says 63% of employers see skills gaps as the main barrier to transformation, and 85% plan to upskill. The pulse for MENA teams: stop reporting catalogue size until you can name the gap in one role.
The 63% and 85% figures are the Forum’s global employer survey for 2025–2030, not a MENA census. “Watching” is AEA’s label for how often nominations still lead with activity.
Qualitative signal
Watching
Named skills gap versus catalogue reporting
2026
Employers already have a sentence for the barrier. The World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2025 says skills gaps in the labour market are the primary barrier to business transformation, cited by 63% of employers, and that 85% expect to prioritise upskilling.
What this desk still sees in draft nominations is a different sentence: how many courses launched, how many hours were consumed, how many licences are active. Those are activity. The Forum’s barrier is a missing skill in a labour market. Your version of that barrier is a missing skill in a named role.
“Watching” means we are watching for the switch — from catalogue reporting to a gap you can point at. It is not a claim that 63% of MENA employers said anything to AEA. They did not. The 63% is the Forum’s.
Use the number as the footnote. Use the role, the missing skill, and the date of the baseline as the page.
Source: World Economic Forum, Future of Jobs Report 2025 — digest.
Questions this piece answers
What are we watching?
Whether learning teams can name a skills gap in one role, the way 63% of employers in the Forum’s 2025 survey name skills gaps as their main transformation barrier.
What is the wrong use of this card?
Quoting 63% or 85% as if AEA measured the Gulf. Those numbers belong to the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2025.
Source: World Economic Forum, Future of Jobs Report 2025. Qualitative use — not an AEA census. · Editorial: AEA Awards Editorial