There’s a new acronym in workplace psychology: FOBO — fear of becoming obsolete. According to the 2026 ETS Human Progress Report, released 14 August, a Harris Poll survey of more than 15,000 US adults found 58 percent of workers report it. Among technology workers the figure climbs to 74 percent, and to 73 percent in financial services — the very sectors investing most in AI.
🔍 THE BOTTOM LINE
The survey’s more encouraging finding has drawn less attention: workers aren’t resisting change. 85 percent say upskilling is no longer optional, and 71 percent report actually doing it. The gap sits with employers — fewer than three-quarters can get adequate employer support, and researchers say employer training hasn’t kept pace with what workers say they need. Fear, in other words, is running well ahead of help.
What the Numbers Say
- 58 percent of workers report FOBO — 74 percent in tech, 73 percent in financial services.
- 85 percent say upskilling is no longer optional, yet only 71 percent report doing it, below the global average of 77 percent (across 18 countries and 32,000+ respondents).
- Barriers are practical, not motivational: 68 percent say upskilling costs are hard to cover, 63 percent can’t find the time, and 57 percent can’t get adequate employer support.
- 65 percent report using AI mainly because they need to stay competitive — pressure that often arrives before workers feel ready.
- ETS also identifies a 19-point gap between how important people consider AI literacy and how proficient they feel at it.
The researchers behind the report see rational fear, not hysteria. Margaret Beier of Rice University told HRD the emotional side of technology-driven job change is understudied — “the worry and anxiety for whether you’re going to be able to find a new job and what skills you need are going to be very difficult for learners.” Peter Cappelli of Wharton pointed to a more basic confusion: workers “keep hearing about the need for new skills or retraining for AI, but you don’t have to look hard to see that there is never any discussion about what those new skills are.”
Why Employer Training Can’t Keep Pace
Harvard Business School’s Christopher Stanton offered the bluntest diagnosis: “If we roll out curriculum for this vintage of a tool, it’s going to be obsolete in two months anyway.” His advice to learning-and-development teams is to use the AI tools directly to build and update training in-house, rather than buying vendor curricula that lag the technology they describe.
He also flagged a pattern relevant to this year’s layoff announcements: the assumption behind many cuts — that AI plus a leaner, self-upskilled workforce could cover the same work — “probably hasn’t played out in the way that many of the executives who made those decisions to cut thought they would.” Companies that don’t invest in training are “likely to fall behind,” he said.
The New Zealand Angle
New Zealand’s version of this gap looks different but rhymes. A July survey by the Employers and Manufacturers Association of more than 300 member businesses found 83 percent of NZ SMEs already use AI — but only 13 percent have an AI policy, and AI initiatives are led by HR in just 4 percent of companies. In other words, Kiwi small businesses are using AI faster than they’re planning for it.
The EMA’s response, a workforce-readiness initiative called Workforce 2030, rests on the same premise the ETS researchers stress: AI skills matter, but the distinguishing capabilities are human ones — critical thinking, judgement, communication, adaptability. That mirrors what the AI Forum’s national survey found: AI has created new career opportunities in 55 percent of adopting NZ organisations, and setup costs have collapsed — three-quarters of organisations now report AI setup costs under $5,000. The technology side of adoption has never been cheaper. The people side is the unfinished work.
For individual workers, the practical takeaway from the FOBO data is that the fear itself is mostly mispriced. The risk it points to is real but manageable — and the survey suggests the constraint is usually time and support, not ability. The workers reporting the highest confidence in their own adaptability, ETS found, are the ones who seek out new challenges and choose how they learn. That’s within reach without waiting for an employer programme.
FAQ
What is FOBO? “fear of becoming obsolete” — anxiety that your skills will be outdated by technology, especially AI. 58 percent of US workers report it, per ETS’s 2026 Human Progress Report.
Are workers actually upskilling? Yes. 85 percent say upskilling is no longer optional and 71 percent report doing it. The blockers are cost (68 percent), time (63 percent) and lack of employer support (57 percent).
What does this mean for NZ workers? NZ SMEs show high AI use (83 percent) but low workforce planning (13 percent with AI policies). Workers may need to drive their own upskilling rather than wait for employer programmes.
Which skills matter most with AI? Surveys from ETS and the EMA converge on judgement, communication, adaptability and critical thinking as the human capabilities AI adoption increases demand for.
— CJ Murden, editor of Singularity.Kiwi. Former digital technologies teacher, author of AI-focused books. Writing with a New Zealand focus.
