The rise of AI, robots and machine learning is expected to created 133 million new jobs by 2022 compared to 75 million that will be displaced, according to a global study from the World Economic Forum (WEF).

WEF’s research, published in the ‘Future of Jobs 2018’ report also found that by 2025 more than half of all current workplace tasks will be performed by machines as opposed to 29% today.

The research is based on a survey of chief HR officers and top strategy executives from companies across 12 industries and 20 developed and emerging economies (which collectively account for 70% of global GDP).

Compared to a similar study by the WEF in 2016 to understand the impact of the Fourth Industrial Revolution on jobs, the outlook for job creation today is much more positive as businesses have a much greater understanding of the opportunities made available by technology.

According to the report, 54% of employees of large companies would need significant re- and up-skilling in order to fully harness the growth opportunities offered by the Fourth Industrial Revolution. At the same time, just over half of the companies surveyed said they planned to reskill only those employees that are in key roles while only one third planned to reskill at-risk workers.

“It is critical that business take an active role in supporting their existing workforces through reskilling and upskilling, that individuals take a proactive approach to their own lifelong learning, and that governments create an enabling environment to facilitate this workforce transformation. This is the key challenge of our time,” Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum, said.

All industries expect to have sizable skills gaps, with the Aviation, Travel & Tourism industry projected to have the highest reskilling needs in the 2018-2022 timeframe.

Meanwhile, the report found that across all countries and regions, employers expect that significant reskilling will be needed by a large share of the global workforce over the 2018-2022 period.

Furthermore, while nearly 50% of all companies expect their full-time workforce to shrink by 2022 as a result of automation, almost 40% expect to extend their workforce generally and more than a quarter expect automation to create new roles in their enterprise.

“While we expect net positive job growth, there will be a significant shift in the quality, location, format and permanency of new roles. In fact, businesses are set to expand their use of contractors doing task-specialized work, engage workers in more flexible arrangements, use remote staffing, and modify the locations where their organization operates to ensure access to talent,” the report stated.

The Bangkok Post reports that by 2030, 72% of university graduates in Thailand could be either unemployed or working in a job that does not require a bachelor’s degree as their jobs will have been taken away by new technologies like AI, according to Deputy Minister of Education Udom Kachinthorn. He said that if Thai universities do not adapt and cannot build a workforce with future-proof skills, then the country “may have to cope with [its] largest ever rate of unemployment.” The deputy minister also warned that universities and teachers must embrace change by using digital technology to make their classes and content more lively, relevant and responsive to the demands and lifestyles of a new generation and that past and current models of the Thai education system are already outdated because they focus on building a very limited set of skills. He also pointed out that digital disruption has already forced several universities to close in other countries.

Proposals for dealing with the impact of automation have been developed in the West, and may not translate effectively to poorer countries.

Recruiters in Australia say that misunderstood reports of automation killing off jobs are contributing to a new skills shortage in the state of Western Australia, reports ABC News. “Automation as a whole is really misunderstood,” Chris Kent, state regional director for Western Australia, at recruitment firm Hays, said. “There’s been some scary reports about what jobs will be automated but the reality is it is tasks that are automated. There are very few jobs that are automated, very few jobs are fully automatable.” Jobs such as heavy mobile maintenance workers, truck operators, drillers and boilermakers are just a few of the trades currently in high demand and Kent said younger workers appear to view manual jobs as occupations with a limited future. Kent adds that companies in the mining industry do have the capacity to automate jobs which is “scaring off key roles, key workforce participants,” but he cautions that not all of them will become automated. Jim Walker, chairman of WA’s State Training Board, said that while those within the training and trade industries understand how automation is being integrated in the workforce, he agrees the general public, and particularly students, are less informed.

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A third of Australian jobs are at risk of becoming automated by 2030, according to research from Adzuna.

Adzuna’s research added that lower-skilled and manual labour roles are most at risk of being automated in the coming years, particularly in regional areas. Futhermore, the data shows a disparity between the percentage of jobs at risk in capital cities compared to their respective states. For instance, 16% of jobs are at risk in Melbourne, whereas 35% are at risk of automation across Victoria as a whole.

“We run the real risk of mass unemployment in our regions and over-population of our major cities,” Adzuna CEO Raife Watson said. “As it stands, Australians who work in manual jobs in regional Australia will face high levels of unemployment over the next decade and will have little choice but to up-skill and move to cities like Sydney and Melbourne.”

Meanwhile, eight out of ten of the jobs least at risk of being automated are in the healthcare industry.

The study also revealed the average salaries for jobs likely to be replaced by robots is much lower, AUD 63,337 (approximately USD 45,500) when compared to those unlikely to be affected, AUD 129,099 (approximately USD 98,970). However, Watson said not all white-collar jobs are immune from automation.

“New technology is introduced almost every day,” Watson said. “Specific types of programmers that were in high demand five years ago now have skills that are obsolete.”

“Australians must be vigilant and continue to think about jobs that will be difficult to replace in the future,” Watson said. “Build a career in a job that requires emotional intelligence and tasks that cannot be replicated by a machine.”