1、Public Sector and People&Organizational Performance PracticesThe upskilling imperative:Required at scale for the future of workSurvey results highlight Americans willingness to change jobs and occupationsif they can gain the needed skills.by Kweilin Ellingrud and Nora Gardner with Claire Le Barbench

2、on and Ryan LubyMay 2025Amid overall uncertainty,including about the future that AI will bring,two things are clear.One,jobs and occupations will change as new technologies are used to handle and support more tasks.The transition to AI is already underway,according to the results of the latest McKin

3、sey American Opportunity Survey(AOS)in which roughly 20 percent of employed respondents say that they have used gen AI for work purposes.Two,as work transforms amid the adoption of new technologies,upskilling that enables occupation switching will be even more important than it is today.Fortunately,

4、US workers have historically been highly adept at modifying what they do for work,and the US labor market has shown itself to be nimble and adaptable relative to some advanced-economy peers.Between 2016 and 2019,Americans changed occupations nearly three times as often as Europeansdid.The COVID-19 p

5、andemic era was a period of greatly accelerated occupational change in Europe,but the United States continued to outpace it even then.The latest AOS data(sampled in August 2024)found that 17 percent of employed US respondents have switched to a different occupation since March 2020(see sidebar,“Our

6、methodology”).Our methodologyThis article is based on a 20-minute Ipsos survey conducted on behalf of McKinsey between August 5 and August 27,2024.A sample of 9,560 adults aged 18 and older from the continental United States,Alaska,and Hawaii was interviewed online in English and Spanish via the pro