Technology is changing the workplace. An increase in the need for remote working capability (accelerated in the past year by the COVID-19 pandemic), the growth of the gig economy and the automation of manual jobs is well under way across the world. Emerging markets is home to 85% of the world’s millennials and 89% of the world’s ‘generation Z’ – the most ‘digital-savvy’ generations ever – and these younger workers will embrace the rise in remote working.¹ They are also more likely to participate in the gig economy and switch jobs more frequently than their predecessors.

This report analyzes how various emerging market countries are positioned to benefit from these shifting trends. Research by the OECD and WEF, for example, indicates that around one billion people in the world will need to learn new skills as their current jobs become obsolete or improved technology means that the tasks can be automated and carried out by robots. As the costs for automation and robotics decrease and wage growth rises, an acceleration in the decline in manual labour roles is expected. 

We examine how the workplace will change and also explore which countries are the best prepared for a ‘digital future’; India, South Africa and the Philippines have the biggest share of the generation Z demographic who are the most digitally connected whereas China, India, Indonesia and Brazil have the largest numbers of young, informal workers who supplement their income using the gig economy.²