Unemployment: The Skill GAP
STORIES, ANALYSES, EXPERT VIEWS
India is not reaping the potential benefits of its demographic dividend. The rise of literacy in India in the past 2 decades has been plagued by rising unemployment amongst skilled personnel. The rise of qualified personnel has not unfortunately led to the rise of skilled, employable personnel.
No shortage of skilled jobs: The rising skilled unemployment in India is wrongly attributed to shortage of skilled jobs in the country. With ever increasing demand from over the world for Indian talent, the Indian IT services sector remains perennially hungry for fresh talented graduates. According to ManGroup’s report of Talent Shortage 2020, 63% companies in India report shortage of talent employees, mainly in IT, engineering services and Sales.
The Indian government and IT firms have made huge efforts in launching various programs to bring emerging tech skills in the country, the state of employability. However, the state of employability within the current passing batch of graduates still remains a question.
The ‘National Employability Report for Engineers 2019’ put out by a job assessment platform Aspiring Minds, has shown that over 80% of engineers in India are unfit to take up any job in the knowledge economy.
Only 1.5% engineers in India being fit for new-age jobs: The report says that Indian engineers are far behind their global counterparts when it comes to honing relevant digital skills in the global job market, namely advanced tech skills such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, data science and wireless technologies etc. Only 2.5% of engineers in India possess artificial intelligence skills while only 5.5% are qualified with basic programming abilities.
These statistics project a despairing figure of only 1.5% engineers in India being fit for new-age jobs.
The problem is that university level education in India is primarily focussed on imparting theory-based knowledge. Only 40% of the total graduate engineers opt for internships for hands-on experience with 36% taking up projects other than their coursework.
Skills required by industry: Therefore, there remains a persistent need to develop skilled engineers in India. As per a report published by India education forum 2021, skills like communication, presentation, attention to detail, research, analytical skills, writing skills are amongst the top skills required by employers. Employers also seek a diverse set of domain skills that range from functional to technical. Data analysis skills (Data Analytics, Artificial Intelligence, and Business Analysis) are a formidable part of the top domain skills employers want candidates to possess. In addition, the industry demands employees who spend minimal time for “on-the-job-training” or “shadow working” and are tailor made specifically for a job profile. Employee prospects need to be ready with the knowledge of various tech stacks and platforms as required by the business.
The generic solution to bridge the gap of talent is to groom talent according to specific roles at hand. With an increasing number of fresh graduates and the increasing number of skilled job opportunities, scaling skill training for custom profiles remains a challenge. This is where experiential learning, mentoring, industry apprenticeship can make an impact.
