The need to be 'Skilled'

India is the fastest growing economy in the world. GDP growth of the country is getting higher despite of this fact India’s employment is still low. There is growth in various sectors, however unemployability is a bigger problem than unemployment. 

India’s problem is jobs not wages. There is a boom in wage sectors but there is a huge lack in skills. This is the main problem India has currently facing. 

What exactly the situation is?

According to the experts unemployability is a bigger problem than unemployment. Expert found the importance of soft skills in the changing job market. 

The importance of “Agility and curiosity” as key contents for any successful employee. Currently the ratio of GDP growth to employment growth is less than 0.1. that means that s 10% increase in GDP results in a less than 1% increase in employment.

According to the government data employment shrank by seven million between 2013 and 2015, and cities private data shown that an absolute decline has continues in the years since.

Unemployment has risen to more than 5%overall, the data shows that in geographic terms, north Indian states are the severely affected, young people with higher education levels suffers an unemployment rate as high as 16%.

In the organised manufacturing sector, the number of jobs has grown, there has also been an increase in the share of contract work, which offers lower wage and less job security. 

The Main concerns is the divergence of productivity and wages in the organised manufacturing sector. Labour productivity in the sector is six time higher than it was 30 years ago, however managerial and supervisory salaries have only triples in the same period. While production worker’s wage has grown 1.5 times.

Women participation is low: - women participation in workforce is still mysteriously low, women labour force has fallen over the years. However, the situation is unequal across states. In utter Pradesh, only 20 women are unpaid employment for every 100 men, while figure jumps to 50 in Tamil nadu and 70 in Mizoram and Nagaland.

The caste gap is larger than the gender gap. Dalits and tribal sector are still in pain of high level of unemployment. They are still in low-paying occupations, and severely under-represented in higher-paying ones, they earn only 55-56% of upper caste workers earnings.

What is needed to be done?

Diversification of economy is needed, so are the need of diverse skills from being largely agro-based to manufacturing to service -based economy. This will help to accommodate the workforce in new sectors.

Outdated skills are into practices,  most of the workforce is stuck with outdated skills. So, market- relevant skills are needed to today’s highly competitive job market.

Skills for Technical advancement which rarely gets attentions due to which jobs will become increasingly scarce .
Demand for skilled Labour- according to a government’s analysis by 2022, 24 sectors will need an additional 109 million skilled workers.

Skills for future economic growth are co-existent. Country's youth and dynamic populations has been regarded as the driver of future economic growth, but the young population need to be skilled.

To meet global demand also need skilled labours. India has more than 50% of its population below the age of 25 and more than 65 below the age of 35. Being a young country are needed to provide best skill development and vocational training to youth.

What are the challenges?

1-      At present, wages are linked with categorization of ‘skilled, ‘semi-skilled or ‘unskilled’, but these have it aligned with skill levels defines as per the national skill qualification framework and recognition of higher level of skills in terms of minimum wage is notes.

2-     Trainings skills mainly in remote areas with technology advancement would be challenging.

3-      Finding students to fill the classrooms and getting people to accept new kind of jobs have difficult.

4-     Student mobilization to het trained has been a major concern due to the traditional mindset, low willingness to migrate, low salaries at entry level.

5-     Large number of youths are indulging in drugs and smoking, they are wasting their precious time in bad activities.

6-     Primitive mind set, casteism, gender inequality, low confidence, loser attitude also made youth handicapped by mind.

7-     Skill training has a bit improved in recent years but the absence of job linkage with training is increasing the problem of unemployment.

Initiatives by government

Government has been working since few years to provide skills and vocational training to the youth and as well to women. flagship Programme like Sankalp and   Skill India mission launched by government which aims to train over 400 million people in India in different skills by 2022. Government also gave huge place to establish FDI in the country so that people of India can get industry relevant job in different sectors. Government has also worked for tribal skill upgradation to help them to get respectable jobs such as: - marketable skills, solar technician electrician, beautification, handicraft, skill for day to day construction works. The government of India has launched “vanbandhu Kalyan yojana “which aims at achieving over all development of tribal people through convergence of available resources, with an outcome-based approach.

Conclusion

India is one of the world’s fastest growing knowledge- based economies due to its huge human capital. However, given the changing demands occurring from shift in the labour force from primary to secondary and territory sectors.

There is a need to further develop the existing low skills levels which pose a challenge to the country’s growth and global competitiveness. The Indian economy to absorb the large mass of population coming into workforce. This require ensuring that they are skilled to meet the requirement of the sectors that will employ them.

Environmental and Social System Assessment (ESSA) report by the World Bank, the government states that while a range of government and private institutions offer skill training programmes, these suffer from inadequate quality and relevance, lack of coordination within the sector, with in enough attention to labour market outcomes. The current training capacity is grossly inadequate to respond to the country’s needs. Therefore, sincerity is needed to improve the condition of the country’s employment rate.