The January 2025 Chief Economists Outlook explores key trends in the global economy, including the latest outlook for growth, inflation, monetary and fiscal policy. It discusses the impact of US policy on the global economy, investigates fragmentation trends and discusses the turbulent outlook for global trade. This series of reports draws on the individual and collective perspectives of a group of leading chief economists through consultations with the World Economic Forum’s Chief Economists Community and a regular Chief Economists Survey.

The 20th edition of the Global Risks Report 2025 reveals an increasingly fractured global landscape, where escalating geopolitical, environmental, societal and technological challenges threaten stability and progress. This edition presents the findings of the Global Risks Perception Survey 2024-2025 (GRPS), which captures insights from over 900 experts worldwide. The report analyses global risks through three timeframes to support decision- makers in balancing current crises and longer-term priorities.

To align the energy sector with net-zero emissions by 2050, annual investment must increase from $2 trillion today to ~$4.5 trillion. This report argues for a targeted, standardized approach to reducing the cost of financing and mitigating the risks of energy transition projects. Collaboration between investors, industry executives, policy-makers and financial institutions is essential.

Electric vehicle battery supply chains are marked by geographic concentration in mining and manufacturing, combined with a globalized distribution of materials. This model increases emissions, weakens resilience, and risks harming developing economies through unregulated cross-border transfers of used batteries. Meanwhile, first-life battery design focuses heavily on performance metrics like cost, range and safety, often neglecting end-of-life considerations such as repairability, recyclability and reuse potential. The lack of effective tracking systems for battery materials hinders responsible sourcing and informed decision-making across the life cycle.

The World Economic Forum's Global Cybersecurity Outlook 2025, written in collaboration with Accenture, examines the cybersecurity trends that will affect economies and societies in the year to come. The report explores major findings and puts a spotlight on the complexity of the cybersecurity landscape, which is intensified by geopolitical tensions, emerging technologies, supply chain interdependencies and cybercrime sophistication.

Technological change, geoeconomic fragmentation, economic uncertainty, demographic shifts and the green transition – individually and in combination are among the major drivers expected to shape and transform the global labour market by 2030. The Future of Jobs Report 2025 brings together the perspective of over 1,000 leading global employers—collectively representing more than 14 million workers across 22 industry clusters and 55 economies from around the world—to examine how these macrotrends impact jobs and skills, and the workforce transformation strategies employers plan to embark on in response, across the 2025 to 2030 timeframe.