India Inc. is worried about the lack of skilled workers across sectors, feels ATUL BHARADWAJ
Hear any CEO from any sector, and the constant refrain is
about the huge talent crunch in the country. From BPO to software, financial services to infrastructure segments, manufacturing to R&D; attrition rates are on the rise, salaries are zooming, and the requisite people required for a specific job are shrinking. “The problem is not so much at the entry level, it exists more at the next level where we find that we don’t have adequately trained people to take the business further to higher levels. This has a cascading affect on long-term growth,” says Roopam Asthana, CEO, SBI Credit Cards.
“Indeed, there is an extreme paucity of skilled workforce. I have been facing this for the past few years. For one desktop engineer, whom many would call a kind of ‘vanilla’ skillset in the IT industry, I have to interview nearly 10 candidates. Similar shortages are being experienced in the apparel and retail sectors,” agrees Kirti Manucha, VP (HR), Fortis Financial, a company promoted by the Ranbaxy Group. And this is something one hears from practically every Indian and foreign head honcho these days.
But how’s this possible when India churns out lakhs of scientists, and other, graduates, every year? How’s this possible when most literate Indians are fluent in English language? How’s this possible when the country’s annual addition to the graduate pool is among the highest in the world? Or is it that what we were hearing all this while from the likes of Nasscom and the bigwigs of IT and BPO sectors were totally wrong?
The new, 21st century argument is that while the above-mentioned factors may be true, India is lagging behind in developing crucial skillsets, which makes a huge proportion of the employable populace ‘unemployable’. This is especially important, since 90% of the available jobs in manufacturing are skilled ones. Even in the case of BPOs, global consultants feel that Indian manpower, especially from small towns, doesn’t have the requisite soft skills needed in MNCs. It is argued that 93% of Indians in the 15-29 age group are not fit enough to handle skilled jobs.
One can clearly understand the problem when one looks at the employment statistics. Of the just over 500 million employed, only 29 million work in the organised sector – 19 million with PSUs and the remaining with private firms. The rest of the employed people find work in sectors such as agriculture, small enterprises and other segments of the unorganised sector. In addition, 41 million are registered with employment offices. While most of them may be graduates, they have no skills and, thus, 99% of them are ‘non-employable’.
China has 500,000 vocational education and training centres, where 100 million, out of a workforce of nearly 800 million people, are trained every year. India has only 12,000 centres, where 2.5 million are imparted the requisite skills each year. Experts feel that only 7% of the Indians in the 15-29 age group get vocational training. Of them, only 2% are fortunate to get formal vocational training, 1% are in the process of acquiring these skills, and the rest 4% are unfortunately quite happy with non-formal training.
If India needs to grow at 10% per annum on a sustainable basis, it needs to arm its workforce with requisite skills. The reason, according to the Indian Labour Report, 2007, prepared by TeamLease Services, is that “53% of employed (Indians) suffer from some degree of skill deprivation. And 57% of India’s youth suffer from some degree of unemployability. This skill-deficit needs urgent repair for which roughly Rs.4.9 trillion (or, 10% of GDP) is needed over the next two years. Currently, we are spending only 25% of the actual sum on required skill-repair.”
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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2008
Hear any CEO from any sector, and the constant refrain is
about the huge talent crunch in the country. From BPO to software, financial services to infrastructure segments, manufacturing to R&D; attrition rates are on the rise, salaries are zooming, and the requisite people required for a specific job are shrinking. “The problem is not so much at the entry level, it exists more at the next level where we find that we don’t have adequately trained people to take the business further to higher levels. This has a cascading affect on long-term growth,” says Roopam Asthana, CEO, SBI Credit Cards.“Indeed, there is an extreme paucity of skilled workforce. I have been facing this for the past few years. For one desktop engineer, whom many would call a kind of ‘vanilla’ skillset in the IT industry, I have to interview nearly 10 candidates. Similar shortages are being experienced in the apparel and retail sectors,” agrees Kirti Manucha, VP (HR), Fortis Financial, a company promoted by the Ranbaxy Group. And this is something one hears from practically every Indian and foreign head honcho these days.
But how’s this possible when India churns out lakhs of scientists, and other, graduates, every year? How’s this possible when most literate Indians are fluent in English language? How’s this possible when the country’s annual addition to the graduate pool is among the highest in the world? Or is it that what we were hearing all this while from the likes of Nasscom and the bigwigs of IT and BPO sectors were totally wrong?
The new, 21st century argument is that while the above-mentioned factors may be true, India is lagging behind in developing crucial skillsets, which makes a huge proportion of the employable populace ‘unemployable’. This is especially important, since 90% of the available jobs in manufacturing are skilled ones. Even in the case of BPOs, global consultants feel that Indian manpower, especially from small towns, doesn’t have the requisite soft skills needed in MNCs. It is argued that 93% of Indians in the 15-29 age group are not fit enough to handle skilled jobs.
One can clearly understand the problem when one looks at the employment statistics. Of the just over 500 million employed, only 29 million work in the organised sector – 19 million with PSUs and the remaining with private firms. The rest of the employed people find work in sectors such as agriculture, small enterprises and other segments of the unorganised sector. In addition, 41 million are registered with employment offices. While most of them may be graduates, they have no skills and, thus, 99% of them are ‘non-employable’.
China has 500,000 vocational education and training centres, where 100 million, out of a workforce of nearly 800 million people, are trained every year. India has only 12,000 centres, where 2.5 million are imparted the requisite skills each year. Experts feel that only 7% of the Indians in the 15-29 age group get vocational training. Of them, only 2% are fortunate to get formal vocational training, 1% are in the process of acquiring these skills, and the rest 4% are unfortunately quite happy with non-formal training.
If India needs to grow at 10% per annum on a sustainable basis, it needs to arm its workforce with requisite skills. The reason, according to the Indian Labour Report, 2007, prepared by TeamLease Services, is that “53% of employed (Indians) suffer from some degree of skill deprivation. And 57% of India’s youth suffer from some degree of unemployability. This skill-deficit needs urgent repair for which roughly Rs.4.9 trillion (or, 10% of GDP) is needed over the next two years. Currently, we are spending only 25% of the actual sum on required skill-repair.”
For Complete IIPM Article, Click on IIPM Article
Source : IIPM Editorial, 2008
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