2023 has arrived –  now that we have rang in the new year, it’s time to perform a review of how the economy is doing on a global scale. We’ve hit a major population milestone of 8 billion people.

To begin with the negative news, global GDP growth has slowed, with current population projections pushing global GDP up by just 9.6%. We are also concerned about future labor shortages, and surpluses are expected to turn into deficits, posing a $10 trillion risk by 2030. Furthermore, the expanding sector must serve an aging population. This will result in an increase in the number of assisted living facilities, medications, and hospitals. Having said that, there have been some spectacular high points in this year’s economics and technologies.

While it’s true we do have an older population, this can be a benefit because this can increase productivity because longer lives lead to increased per capita. Larger countries lead to an increase in multinational corporations. MNCs and affiliates contributed 36% of global output in 2016 alone. The last point to make is that much of the GDP is shifting toward sub-Saharan Africa. These effective labor growth rates in Africa (2.22%) will outpace Europe and the Americas (0.79%) between 2020 and 2060. These opportunities for improvement are giving a bright future in the years ahead.

8 billion people visualized