The world's chief executives are more worried about finding workers with the right skills than they are about global political volatility and a surge in populism.
That's the finding of accounting giant PwC's annual CEO survey, revealed at the Davos World Economic Forum overnight.
The survey of 1379 CEOs from 79 countries carried out in the last four months of 2016 shows 77 per cent are concerned about skill shortages - more than double the number when the poll was first taken 20 years ago.
Skill shortages has been one of the fastest growing concerns since 2015, when it troubled 73 per cent of CEOs.
Fears over skills were most acute among CEOs in Africa (80 per cent) and the Asia Pacific (82 per cent).
The number of business leaders who expected to increase their staff headcount over the next 12 months grew from 48 per cent in 2016 to 52 per cent, while 16 per cent expected to cut staff, overwhelmingly due to technology and automation making jobs obsolete.
Creativity and innovation, leadership, and emotional intelligence were the most sought after skills, PwC found, while over half of CEOs had issues recruiting workers with digital and STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) skills.
"CEOs are concerned that key skill shortages will impair their company's growth potential, relevance and sustainability," PwC's global chairman Bob Moritz said.
"And it's soft skills that they value the most. Innovation and relationship skills can't be coded. So to drive the change CEOs need... a balance between technology and irreplaceable skills in their people is key."
Uncertain economic growth (82 per cent) and over-regulation (80 per cent) rounded out the top-three threats to business, followed by geopolitical uncertainty (74 per cent) and speed of technological change (70 per cent).
Despite a volatile year including the shock Brexit vote and the surprise election of Donald Trump to the White House on a populist and anti-trade platform, CEOs were more confident about their businesses than a year ago, with 38 per cent "very confident" about their growth prospects over the next 12 months. Last year 35 per cent felt that way, but the figure still languishes below pre-GFC highs of 52 per cent in 2006.
Twenty-nine per cent of CEOs thought global economic growth would pick up in 2017, up from 27 per cent a year earlier.
"Despite a tumultuous 2016, CEO confidence is moving back up – albeit slowly and still a long way from the levels we saw back in 2007," Mr Moritz said.
"But there are signs of optimism right across the globe, including in the UK and US, where despite predictions of a Trump slump and a Brexit exit, CEOs confidence in their company's growth are up from 2016. And that mood is reflected elsewhere, with more CEOs across the world targeting the US and UK for investment than a year ago."
Also keeping CEOs awake at night is the challenge of gaining and keeping people's trust in a digital-driven world (69 per cent) and the risks of data privacy and ethics issues (91 per cent).
Meanwhile CEOs are becoming more sceptical about globalisation's ability to close the gap between the rich and poor and to mitigate climate change, but were still out of step with an even more sceptical public.
"Public discontent has the potential to erode trust which is needed for long term sustainable performance," Mr Moritz said while calling for CEO's to forge "deeper, two-way relationship with stakeholders, customers, employees, and the public".
"There's a lot at stake if we do not achieve inclusive global growth," he said.
