Top 7 Employment Trends 2025: 4-Day Week & Agentic AI

What does 2025 hold for the workplace, and what clues do the work trends of 2024 hint at what’s to come? In recent years, we have seen the rise of quiet quitting and presenteeism. With wave after wave of layoffs, company loyalty is declining, and two-thirds of Gen Z are now turning to ‘job-hopping’ for their career growth.

Other trends in employment, such as bare minimum Mondays, revenge quitting, and quiet firing, reveal a workforce increasingly demanding empathy and flexibility from their employers.

As 2025 approaches, are businesses ready to meet these new expectations, or will they face even bigger challenges?

Table of Contents Table of Contents

1. Key Takeaways
2. Top Employment Trends for 2025: Global Insights
3. The Bottom Line
4. FAQs
5. References

Show Full Guide

Table of Contents

1. Key Takeaways
2. Top Employment Trends for 2025: Global Insights
3. The Bottom Line
Show Full Guide
4. FAQs
5. References

Top Employment Trends for 2025: Global Insights

1. Increased Automation

Digitization and automation are expected to make 20 to 30% of jobs obsolete over the next 10 years. Forrester predicts that automation and AI will replace 4.9% of US jobs by 2030. Of this percentage, generative AI specifically will account for 30% of the losses.

In terms of the number of jobs, Forrester Research forecasts that generative AI will replace 2.4 million by 2030.

However, generative AI enhances the way STEM, creative, and business and legal professionals work rather than eliminating a significant number of jobs outright, according to McKinsey.

Automation’s biggest effects hit other job categories, such as office support, customer service, and food service employment, which could continue to decline.

However, one area expects a massive employment boom when looking at job growth by industry.

Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) predicts that the US economy will add 6.7 million jobs from 2023 to 2033. Around 1 in 8 or 822,700 new jobs will be added in the leisure and hospitality sector.

2. Resurgence of Blue-Collar & New-Collar Jobs

Many young adults are turning their backs on rising college costs and starting their careers with substantial student loan debt. This change has created a movement back toward blue-collar and ‘new-collar’ jobs.

In recent years, it has been difficult for the construction industry to attract young people. In 2022, the median age of construction workers was 41, with 45% of workers aged 45 and older. However, the allure of no student debt and higher pay attracts younger workers back to the industry.

The term new collar usually refers to roles that do not require a traditional college degree but rather prioritize skills, often technical, acquired through vocational training, coding boot camps, or on-the-job training.

The so-called new-collar jobs in AI and cybersecurity are becoming new job market trends that push up salaries, and businesses are desperate to fill positions. For example, cybersecurity has a 0% unemployment rate and doesn’t require an advanced education to secure an entry position.

3. Accelerated Job Hopping

The AI gold rush has seen many organizations prioritize profits over employee wellbeing.

Frustrated by the threat of losing their job, limited career-growth opportunities, low pay, poor management, and a lack of flexibility, many workers feel unappreciated and are flirting with burnout. But the start of a new year will see many try to turn their life around.

Recent research from ResumeTemplates suggests that six in ten workers will be looking for a new job next year. Notably, one in five plan to change fields, and one in three will quit without another job lined up.

As traditional job roles disappear and workers look to find AI-proof jobs, one of the biggest employment trends will be driven by workers pivoting to future-proof their careers.

Many workers expressed interest in moving into health care, finance, tech, and service/hospitality roles.

4. Agentic AI’s Takeover

Just as you have finally gotten to grips with generative AI in the workplace, Agentic AI is expected to have buzzword status in 2025.

Gartner declared that Agentic AI will be one of the top strategic job trends in 2025, with further predictions that AI agents will execute 15% of work decisions by 2028.

AI will go beyond being just a tool to a co-pilot that works alongside human employees, and workers will be asked to embrace this new human and machine collaboration.

As some traditional roles become automated and disappear, employers and employees will have to embrace this augmentation. Rather than replacing humans, enterprises and individuals that leverage AI will make real progress, enhancing their human skills and boosting their productivity.

As AI increasingly handles repetitive and mundane tasks, employees will be asked to leverage their inherent human skills around communication, management, emotional intelligence, strategic thinking, and interpersonal skills to drive the business and their careers forward.

Priyanka Kharat, vice president of product and engineering at ScienceLogic, told Techopedia:

“Agentic AI will enable IT teams across all industry verticals to reimagine complex operations by breaking them down as goals that will be planned, adapted, and taken through decisive actions autonomously, with minimal human intervention.”

5. Reskilling & Upskilling

According to a World Economic Forum report, half the global workforce will require reskilling in 2025, and technology will transform more than 1.1 billion jobs in the next decade.

Organizations will need to encourage a culture of continuous learning and invest in their employees to ensure that nobody gets left behind as the pace of technological change ramps up.

With employees looking for a company that invests in their learning and development, upskilling will become a massive employment trend and the best way of attracting new talent and retaining their staff.

While speaking with Techopedia, Lori Cummings, PHR, SHRM-CP, SVP of People and Culture at Skillable, cautioned employees to get upskilled or be left behind:

“Employees who are not upskilled in AI can find themselves behind not only with their own company’s requirements but with the skills and experience required to grow their careers.”

Cummings also suggested that companies consider upskilling and reskilling programs as investments that will pay off in the long run. She said:

“Investment in upskilling employees is not just a retention tool, but a key tactic in longer-term talent planning and ensuring depth of talent across an organization. Investment in the talent acquisition process is significant in hard and soft costs.”

6. Introducing a 4-Day Week

Do you know one of the lucky ones who loves telling you how their perfect job includes hard work and a four-day week? That best employment experience is quickly becoming the minimum expectation for workers everywhere.

If AI and automation can handle all the tedious tasks, every employee must be the best version of their human self. Whether it be critical thinking, building rapport when collaborating with multiple stakeholders, or showing empathy to colleagues, workers need to develop their human skills.

A four-day working week is increasingly seen as the perfect work-life balance and the best way of finally retiring presenteeism when an employee is physically present at work but not actively motivated or engaged.

Businesses looking for the ROI of a four-day week will find no shortages of supporting evidence.

Recent reports reveal that a shorter working week has delivered a 65% reduction in sick days and 71% lower levels of burnout. Best of all, some businesses have enjoyed a 40% increase in productivity.

7. Side Hustles Shape the Next Wave of Employment

The days of having a job for life are long gone. Younger workers are looking for flexible and challenging work that they enjoy and will help them live life on their terms. Thanks to technology, starting your own business no longer needs to be a scary prospect, as it’s easier than ever to build your portfolio or side hustle alongside your full-time job.

A study by Herbalife revealed that 40% of Americans are turning to side hustles or other forms of supplemental income. Large enterprises arguably started this trend by reducing headcount and hiring freelancers or contractors for project-based tasks on an as-and-when-required basis.

When full-time employees see contractors earning much more than them, it is only a matter of time before they evolve to meet this increasing demand.

Employment trend examples like these show increased flexibility in the workplace from both employers and employees.

The Bottom Line

Our job trend analysis reveals how evolving workplace expectations are already driving massive changes in employee behavior and organizational culture. In 2025, the workplace will see another year of transformative changes heavily influenced by the hiring trends and trials of 2024, dominated by AI.

Predictably, the year might begin with an increase in job-hopping, with workers catching ‘new year, new me’ opportunities. The blurring lines between side hustles and full-time careers signal a definitive shift in the relationship between employers and employees.

The future of work is about more than just surviving. It’s about thriving in an environment that values human insight as much as technological advancement.

The question shouldn’t be about how employment trends will change the workplace in 2025. But how quickly and effectively we can steer these changes toward creating a more inclusive, resilient, and forward-thinking working world.

FAQs