Report: Reskilling workers due to automation will cost $34 billion

The U.S. government and private companies will need to pay $34 billion to reskill 1.4 million workers who may lose their jobs to automation in the coming years, according to a new report from the World Economic Forum.

Yes, but: Most of that cost will have to be covered by the government because only about 25% of it will be cost-efficient for business, Saadia Zahidi, managing director of the World Economic Forum, told Axios.

What's happening: The World Economic Forum, meeting this week in Davos, Switzerland, sought to put a dollar amount on the fundamental reskilling of the workforce that will be necessary against a huge wave of automation presumed to be on its way.

• The 1.4 million displaced workers due to robotization, an estimate originally from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, is a fraction of what prior major forecasts estimated, including Oxford University and the McKinsey Global Institute.
• Zahidi says that if the larger estimates are right, the cost of reskilling will be that much higher.
• Many of those to be displaced will have to learn entirely different occupations, according to the report.

The report also said that 18% of those displaced, or 252,000 people, will not be reskillable economically, so the government will have to step in with public assistance.