Economic concerns – including the potential for recessions, labor shortages, and elevated inflation – remain front of mind for businesses, according to the World Economic Forum’s 2024 Executive Opinion Survey (EOS).
Executives were asked to identify the top five risks they consider the biggest threats to their country over the next two years. More than 11,000 responses from executives across 121 economies reflect continuing unease over the strength of the global economy, access to human capital and energy supplies, and geopolitical and geoeconomic rivalries.
Top five risk concerns by region
Record levels of inflation, a pervasive cost-of-living crisis, energy supply challenges, and the extreme weather events that devastated communities in many countries drove a relatively consistent set of top business leader concerns across regions. Similar to 2023, the strength of sentiment on these issues resulted in a lower profile for geopolitical and technological risks.
Key takeaways:
- With the threat of recession still looming and debts – both public and household – mounting, “economic downturn”, “labour and/or talent shortage”, “inflation”, “poverty and inequality”, and “unemployment or lack of economic opportunity” feature heavily among the top five risks globally.
- Reflecting the cost-of-living crisis, frequent worker strike actions in many countries, and the results of national elections, “economic downturn”, “poverty and inequality”, and "inflation” are top five risks for business executives in high-, upper-middle-, lower-middle-, and low-income countries alike.
- In a year of notable severe flooding, wildfires, high temperatures, and elevated windstorm activity in nearly every region, and with weather patterns entering a La Niña phase, it is no surprise that environmental risks, including “extreme weather events”, “water supply shortage”, and “food supply shortage”, are top five concerns worldwide.
- Given the more intense focus on economic, societal, and environmental issues, cyber and technological risks feature less prominently in the rankings overall. However, executives in several high-income countries placed “misinformation and disinformation” and “adverse outcomes of “artificial intelligence technologies” in their top five, which indicates that these are expected to further complicate the risk landscape in the near-term.
FAQs:
What are the top risk concerns for business executives in 2024? How many total risks did respondents evaluate?
“Economic downturn”, “inflation”, and “labour and/or talent shortage” dominated the list as the top three risks cited by business executives for 2024. “Poverty and inequality” and “extreme weather events” rounded out the top five. Respondents from across 121 economies evaluated 34 risks across economic, environmental, geopolitical, social, and technological categories and then chose the top five most likely to pose the biggest threat to their country in the next two years.
How does the Executive Opinion Survey relate to the Global Risks Report?
The EOS is conducted by the World Economic Forum’s Centre for the New Economy and Society with a focus on business executives. It complements the data on global risks from the Global Risks Perception Survey (GRPS) — collected from a broader pool of respondents from academia, business, government, the international community, and civil society — which underpins the annual Global Risks Report. When considered in context with the GRPS, the data drawn from the EOS provides insight into local concerns and priorities and points to potential “hot spots” and regional manifestations of global risks. It is included as an appendix in the Global Risks Report.
What do these results mean for my organization?
While positive trends are emerging in the global economy, the findings of the EOS highlight a significant level of anxiety among business executives. To navigate the survey’s highlighted challenges successfully, your organization needs to remain vigilant about developments in the risk landscape and adaptable. This includes using the EOS results, the Global Risks Report, and other information sources to engage in conversations within your own organization about the differing risk concerns in the regions in which you operate; what this means for your assets, production, supply chains, and markets; and the opportunities this presents to improve resilience, optimize risk management and risk transfer strategies, and more. Consult with your Marsh, Mercer, Oliver Wyman, or Guy Carpenter point of contact to learn about our geoeconomic and geopolitical, supply chain, climate change, cyber, and people risk perspectives and solutions that can help you confidently navigate the 2025 risk landscape.
