Monday 14 November 2011

India to have 20% of world’s workforce in the next decade




200m graduates and 500m skilled workers will be in job market

India will account for 20 per cent of the world’s global workforce in 2020s. The average age of Indian workforce will be 29 years as compared to 37 for the US and China and 45 years for Europe, Kapil Sibal, minister for human resource development, communications and IT said at the India Economic Summit 2011 in Mumbai.

“This is big challenge for the country and we will need to ensure that the workforce develops different kinds of skills to match the available economic opportunities,” said Kapil Sibal. N Chandrasekaran, managing director at Tata Consultancy Services said India would soon have 136 million graduates compared to 23 million in China and 11 million in the US.

Panellists at the summit stressed on the need to ensure employability of school and college graduates across a wide range of vocations from manufacturing to construction trades to technology workers etc. “We have launched the skill development councils and the national skill mission to bridge the gap between the demand and supply of skilled employees,” said Sibal. According to him India will see 200 million graduates and 500 million skilled staffers by the year 2020. To ensure adequate jobs are available the government is trying to set up vocational institutes close to the industry clusters so that the industry can give inputs on the needs from talent.

“India is where the world went to, for labour arbitrage and talent. The challenge now is how do you build on that reputation over the next five to seven years to move from entry level salaries to higher salaries,” said Jeffrey Joerres, chairman and CEO of the $22 billion Manpower group. According to him the next level of talent now available in India does not meet the skill set demand of major global corporations in the way the current crop has. “Outcomes at the 17,000 colleges and universities is what needs to be looked into; as at present they are viewed with some degree of suspicion,” Joerres told Financial Chronicle.

Rajendra S Pawar chairman at NIIT talked of the need to put money in hands of 500 million learners to help them acquire the skill sets needed to be employable. “When this is done innovation in business models will happen to cater to this opportunity,” said Pawar. Participants expressed the hope that e-learning will revolutionise the way education is delivered and the costs as well for masses.

Participants at the summit spoke about how progressive state governments who were investing in infrastructure creation were providing migrant labour, jobs closer to their homes thus reversing rural migration in search of employment.

Arun Maira, member of the Planning Commission said that the new manufacturing policy formulated by the central government is expected to create 100 million jobs.

At the same time participants pointed out that the country’s manufacturing sector is at present, fighting to retain talent. “The average attrition rate in industry is today in double digit percentage. This throws the spotlight on what skill development is required to create the talent pool that we need,” said Baba N Kalyani, chairman and managing director at Bharat Forge.

A healthy manufacturing sector pointed out B Muthuraman, president at CII was necessary to ensure the country becomes prosperous. “No country in the world has become economically prosperous without going through a period of manufacturing dominance over a long period of time. The larger its population, the longer has been the period of dominance required,” said Muthuraman.



http://www.mydigitalfc.com/jobs/india-have-20-world%E2%80%99s-workforce-next-decade-354

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