India is pegged to become the world’s largest workforce by 2027 but for this, it has to shift focus from mere skilling of youth. The nature of skills has to be re-considered

While on a field trip to Mumbai in Maniben MP Shah College of Shreemati Nathibai Damodar Thackersay (SNDT) University in Matunga, I met Nithya, a 19-year-old girl, for whom the very idea of being employed was, until a few months ago, a distant dream. Today, Nithya is on the brink of a new life, equipped with a letter of intent from Andromeda Loans that guarantees her a job. I also learnt that she will be the first woman in her family to venture out for work. What Nithya needed most was guidance on how to find the right career opportunities that can help her secure her family’s future.

She received this along with 200 other students who attended the career guidance counselling and employability session facilitated by the Disha Programme—a partnership of the  United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) India and India Development Foundation and supported by the IKEA Foundation. Under this programme, young girls like Nithya are guided on discovering their interests, trained on how to improve their employability skills and are connected with the companies and local businesses as potential employees.

The Indian workforce today needs a formula to find the right person with the right skills for the right job. It is essential to examine each component of this requirement, to understand how to develop a model which will ensure that job seekers are connected with the right employers. It has long been believed that the Indian employment market is supply-driven, without considering the different aspects of the demand. Aside from the demands of the employer or the private sector, not enough focus is being given to the needs and aspirations of the young job-seekers. Today, India is sitting on a goldmine of raw talent, waiting to be nurtured, developed and added to the growing human resource pool. India has more than 50 per cent of its population below the age of 25, a number that will look for jobs for the next one decade. As per the Census 2011 and the National Sample Survey Office, there is an estimate of over 105 million fresh entrants into the workforce that would require skill training by 2022.

While large-scale skill development programmes today focus on skilling and job placement, it also needs to explore what potential employees want or excel at. This gap in programmes can lead to entrants resigning from their positions within a few months. It also becomes a problem for young women, who are often pressured to get married in school or early in their jobs. The aim must be to find the right person for every job by providing counselling and career guidance services to young men and women, both in school and out of school, to enable job-seekers to become aware of the range of opportunities, discover their aptitudes and choose a skill-set that matches their aspirations.

Second, the alignment of skills with jobs is the most pivotal factor in determining the growth of the Indian workforce. With the advent of technology, it is becoming clear that skills that are taught today will become obsolete within the next few years. Many skills that would be required in the future are currently unknown and large-scale programmes to impart technical skills to the youth today may leave them unemployed in a decade or so.

According to the World Economic Forum’s The Future of Jobs Report, by 2022, no less than 54 per cent of all employees will require significant re- and up-skilling. Of these, about 35 per cent are expected to require additional training of up to six months, nine per cent will require re-skilling, lasting six to 12 months, while 10 per cent will require additional skills training of more than a year.

In such a situation, “21st century skills” become crucial for young people to ensure sustained employment and the ability to make dynamic moves within different sectors. These transferable capabilities are useful in all jobs and include communication, digital, cognitive (computing, critical thinking and ability to learn) and non-cognitive (social emotional intelligence, teamwork, creativity) skills. Such functional abilities need to be introduced into the formal education system very early on, and not only in the context of job-seeking. Imbibing such skills from a primary level would equip the youth much better for the dynamic nature of employment that the market will be witnessing in the years ahead. For example, even if a computer is able to handle document and loan processing, Nithya will still be essential for customer relations, due to the communication skills she acquired during her training with Project Disha.

The last component is the identification of the right job. Currently, the formal economy in India, represented by large companies, constitutes 10-15 per cent of the workforce. The majority of employment opportunities lie within the unorganised sector, and unfortunately these smaller companies currently lie completely outside the purview of the skilling ecosystem.

While all the major government schemes are currently geared towards the formal economy, it is important to understand the requirements of smaller employers within the unorganised sector and create linkages with the youth to tap the full potential of the employment market. This requires greater decentralisation to bring together local employers, skilling institutes, and potential employees.

The UNDP  is creating such collaborative platforms at the district level for various stakeholders in the skilling ecosystem, including NGOs, local administration, schools and colleges, vocational training providers, sector-skill councils, and local businesses. All of them would benefit from such a platform, wherein they understand each other’s needs much more clearly, enabling the youth to be skilled in

those areas where employers require workers.

Interventions like Project Disha aim to create an ecosystem where education links directly with the needs of the market, and such linkages are pivotal in ensuring that more young women like Nithya can achieve their goals. It is clear that the need for the youth to skill themselves in alignment with the needs of India Inc is essential in preparing India for 2027, when it is likely to have the world’s largest workforce. Merely skilling is not enough; the nature of skills that are being taught, as well as the motivation and knowledge of the youth are both crucial factors in ensuring the success of all large-scale skilling programmes in India.

(The author is the chief of Skill and Business Development at UNDP in India)