Employees are increasingly feeling cash-strapped as a cooling economy and inflationary challenges continue to impact workforce wallets, says the PwC 2023 Global Workforce Hopes & Fears Survey which details the attitudes and behaviours of nearly 54,000 workers in 46 countries and territories.

The proportion of the global workforce who said they have money left over at the end of the month has fallen to 38 percent, down from 47 percent last year. The survey also showed one in five workers now work multiple jobs, with 69 percent doing so because they need additional income. The share of workers with multiple jobs is higher for Gen Z at 30 percent and ethnic minorities at 28 percent.

An OECD report earlier had found that migrants and racial as well as ethnic minorities face particularly difficult challenges given their high concentration in specific low-skilled occupations and sectors. These are exacerbated by the lack of social networks that hampers not only job-search but also transitions across careers, and by the discrimination they often face.

The OECD report pointed out that in the United States, the crisis affected racial and ethnic minorities disproportionally, and their labour market recovery has been slower. In the United Kingdom, racial/ethnic minorities have recovered some of the ground lost at the beginning of the crisis when their unemployment rate increased more than for the rest of the population, but their labour market prospects remain highly uncertain. In Canada, minorities and indigenous people have also seen their labour market outcomes deteriorate more. Few other OECD countries collect data which allows the impact of the crisis on minorities to be monitored.

According to the PwC global report, the current economic squeeze is also driving up pay demands, with the proportion of workers planning to ask for a pay increase jumping from 35 percent to 42 percent year on year. Among workers who are struggling financially, that number rises to nearly half, at 46 percent.

The condition of low-paid workers has been further accentuated by the impending threat from the increasing adoption of artificial intelligence in businesses and activities. Workers struggling financially are also less able to meet the challenges of the future including the need to develop new skills and adapt to the rise of AI.

Compared to workers who can pay their bills comfortably, those who struggle or cannot pay their bills are 12 percentage points less likely to say they are actively seeking out opportunities to develop new skills – 62 percent versus 50 percent. Similarly, those workers who are more financially secure are more likely to seek feedback at work and use it to improve their performance (57 percent) than those who are struggling financially (45 percent).

The survey also reveals stark demographic disparities in employee attitudes towards AI. Younger generations are much more likely to expect AI to impact their careers across all the surveyed impacts, both positive and negative, whereas a little over one-third (34 percent) of Baby Boomers think AI will not impact their careers, only 14 percent of Gen Z and 17 percent of Millennials agree.

More than one-third (37%) of workers doing better financially say AI will improve their productivity versus those workers not doing well financially (24%). Those workers doing better financially also think AI will create new job opportunities (24% vs. 19%). They are less likely to think it will change the nature of their work in a negative way (13% vs. 18%).

In contrast, skilled workers are facing a rapidly changing economic and workplace environment with greater confidence. Workers who said their job requires specialised skills are more likely to anticipate change ahead. More than half say the skills their job requires will change significantly in the next five years, compared to just 15 percent for employees who don't have specialised training. Around two-thirds are confident their employer will help them develop the digital, analytical and collaboration skills they will need. These numbers fall to below half for those who do not currently work in jobs that require specialist training.

The survey revealed that employers are missing out on valuable talent because of old-fashioned approaches to recruitment and development. More than one-third (35%) of workers with specialist skills moderately or strongly agree that they have missed out on work opportunities because they don't know the right people.

More than a third of workers say they have skills that are not apparent from their CV or job histories, indicating companies may be overlooking talent within the ranks. Recent research published by the World Economic Forum in collaboration with PwC found that creating skills-first labour markets could help more than 100 million people worldwide get better jobs.

Another insightful finding of the survey is that four in 10 CEOs think their company will not survive more than 10 years without transformation. In the survey, the workforce is a little more optimistic, with the equivalent figure standing at 33 percent, although such pessimism rises to 40 percent among younger generations. Confidence in long-term business longevity is also key to retention. Workers who believe their company won't survive a decade on its current path are more than twice as likely to leave in the next 12 months. As much as 43 percent of workers cite they are likely to leave as opposed to 19 percent who believe their company will survive longer than a decade.

One in four employees say it is likely they will change jobs in the next 12 months, up from 19 percent last year. Workers who said they are most likely to change employers include those who feel overworked (44%), struggle to pay the bills every month (38%), and Gen Z (35%).

Among workers who said they are likely to change employers, less than half (47%) said they find their jobs fulfilling compared to 57 percent of those unlikely to change employers. Those likely to change employers are also eight percentage points less likely to say that they can truly be themselves at work than their counterparts who intend to stay (51% vs. 59%). (IPA Service)