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Hans India
22-05-2025
- Business
- Hans India
The Skill Economy Is Here, and Most Companies Are Still Hiring for Roles
India's workforce is at a crossroads. While the global economy shifts towards skill-based hiring, a significant gap persists between the skills employers need and those job seekers possess. According to the India Skills Report 2025, only 54.81% of Indian graduates are deemed employable, despite a 7% year-on-year improvement. This paradox underscores a critical challenge: the rise of the skill economy has not yet translated into systemic changes in hiring practices, leaving companies scrambling to fill roles rather than cultivating talent aligned with future-ready capabilities. The Skill Economy: India's Progress and Persistent Gaps The Skill India Mission, launched in 2015, has trained over 40 crore individuals, contributing to a notable rise in employability—from 33% a decade ago to 54.81% in 2025. Initiatives like Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY) have enabled sectors such as IT, healthcare, and renewable energy to bridge skill gaps. For instance, Karnataka's PMKVY centres trained 1.2 lakh youths in 2023–24, with 68% securing roles in high-demand industries like cybersecurity and green energy. However, the Wheebox ETS India Skills Report 2025 reveals stark disparities. While management graduates boast 78% employability, women's employability rates have declined to 47.5%, highlighting systemic inequities. Furthermore, only 50% of secondary and tertiary students receive vocational training, leaving a void in sectors like AI and fintech, which require 400,000 skilled professionals by 2030. Why Companies Still Hire for Roles, Not Skills Despite the skill economy's promise, most Indian firms remain entrenched in traditional hiring models. A 2024 survey by TeamLease indicates that 62% of companies prioritise academic credentials over demonstrable skills, citing risk aversion and a lack of robust assessment frameworks. This mismatch is evident in sectors like manufacturing, where 45% of employers report difficulty finding workers with automation expertise, despite India's $2.5 trillion construction industry demanding such skills. The tech sector exemplifies this dichotomy. While India produces 1.5 million engineering graduates annually, only 35% possess coding proficiency, per NASSCOM. Yet, firms like Infosys and Wipro continue to recruit en masse for generic roles, investing ₹10,000–15,000 crore annually in upskilling post-hire—a reactive approach that strains resources and delays productivity. Case Studies: Bridging the Skill-Role Divide 1. Renewable Energy Sector: ReNew Power partnered with NIIT to design a 6-month certification program in solar panel maintenance and grid management. This initiative reduced onboarding time by 40% and improved operational efficiency by 25%, demonstrating the value of pre-skilled talent. 2. Healthcare: Apollo Hospitals introduced a blended learning model for nurses, combining AI-driven simulations with on-the-job training. This reduced diagnostic errors by 18% and cut training costs by 30%. 3. MSMEs in Tier-2 Cities: A Surat-based textile SME adopted our skill-mapping audit to identify and upskill workers in digital inventory management. This led to a 20% reduction in waste and a 15% increase in export orders within a year. The Impact of Misaligned Hiring Practices Companies adhering to role-based hiring face three critical risks: 1. Productivity Loss: It takes 6–8 months to upskill hires for specialised roles, during which productivity lags by 30–40%. 2. Attrition: A LinkedIn report notes that 67% of employees leave within a year if their skills are underutilised. 3. Innovation Stagnation: Firms lose ground to agile competitors who leverage niche skills in AI and data analytics. For India, the stakes are high. With 65% of its workforce under 35, the country must align its demographic dividend with emerging sectors. The construction industry alone needs 7.5 crore skilled workers by 2030, yet current training capacity meets only 40% of demand. A Roadmap for Businesses and Policymakers To thrive in the skill economy, stakeholders must adopt a proactive approach: 1. Skill-Centric Recruitment: ● Use AI-driven platforms like Wheebox's Global Employability Test to assess candidates' problem-solving and technical abilities. ● Expand apprenticeship programs under the National Apprenticeship Promotion Scheme (NAPS), which has placed 5 lakh youths since 2023. 2. Industry-Education Collaboration: ● Integrate vocational training into academic curricula. The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 mandates this, but only 12 states have implemented it effectively. ● Develop micro-credentials in partnership with platforms like Coursera, which saw a 200% surge in Indian enrollments for AI and blockchain courses in 2024. 3. Gender Inclusivity: ● Address the 8% gender gap in employability through targeted initiatives. For example, Tech Mahindra's 'Women in Tech' program has upskilled 15,000 women in cloud computing since 2022. 4. Government Incentives: ● Expand the Scope of PLI Schemes to include SMEs investing in employee upskilling. ● Offer tax breaks for companies that hire certified candidates from Skill India programs. From Roles to Skills—A Strategic Imperative The skill economy is not a distant future—it is here. Companies clinging to outdated hiring models risk obsolescence in an era where adaptability determines survival. For India, aligning its workforce with global demands requires a concerted effort from businesses, educators, and policymakers. By prioritising skills over roles, fostering inclusivity, and leveraging technology, India can transform its demographic potential into economic leadership. (The author is Founder of Stratefix Consulting)
Indian Express
13-05-2025
- Politics
- Indian Express
From questions to action: Why Parliament must lead on youth employment
Written by Ruchi Gupta, Vandita Gupta and Abhishek Sharma India is a young nation with an old promise — the promise that democracy, when made truly representative, can deliver on the aspirations of its people. Today, that promise rests on how seriously we confront the question of youth employment. Two-thirds of our population is under the age of 35. Every month, nearly one million young Indians enter the workforce. Yet, too many find themselves navigating a maze of informal, low-paid, insecure work — or worse, excluded altogether from meaningful economic opportunity. This is not only an economic challenge. It is a democratic one. Youth employment is not a standalone issue —it is systemic. It shapes social mobility, institutional trust, and the long-term legitimacy of democratic governance itself. Youth employment intersects with every sector, state, and social group, and while this enormously increases complexity, it also presents a unique opportunity. Youth employment is one of the few issues that can bring the entire country together in one unifying purpose. And the institution best positioned to harness this potential is Parliament. The Parliament is not just our country's highest institutional expression for bipartisan deliberation and decision-making in the national interest, but also India's only space where regional, ideological, and generational diversity come together with a mandate to deliberate. A recently released report by the Future of India Foundation, The Public Record: Parliament on Youth and Employment, assesses Parliament's engagement with this critical issue. The report offers evidence of Parliament's growing, if uneven, engagement with this agenda. It is a foundation to build on — and a challenge to deepen. Parliament is listening – but gaps remain Of the over 60,000 questions asked by MPs in the 17th Lok Sabha, over 8,000 questions (more than 14 per cent) were related to youth employment. Over 88 per cent of MPs — across parties, states, and demographics — engaged with the issue at least once. Despite the partisan divides that often characterise public debate, through these individual questions, Parliament has quietly emerged as a place where the urgent needs of India's youth are finding common ground and being voiced. What MPs are asking is instructive. Questions about vocational training outcomes, the performance of skilling schemes like PMKVY, support for MSMEs, and access to credit through the Mudra scheme reflect a keen interest in the mechanics of employability. Others probe into issues around labour conditions, public sector recruitment, contractualisation, and job security. The report also surfaces important variations that Parliament can learn from: States like Maharashtra and Kerala show deeper engagement; women and ST MPs raise more community-specific concerns; thematic breadth spans from labour rights to entrepreneurship. These differences indicate not fragmentation but strength. They show that Parliament has within it the capacity to broaden and diversify its focus. The challenge is not to invent new agendas. It is to consolidate what is already on everyone's mind. Crucially, attention is slowly turning to future-oriented themes: The gig economy, artificial intelligence, and digital skilling. However, these questions are still few, and the engagement with associated issues is still preliminary. Few MPs raised concerns about algorithmic management, digital exclusion, platform regulation or job displacement — key issues that will shape the future of work. From ad-hoc questions to institutional leadership Raising questions is necessary, but not sufficient. Institutional leadership means building the frameworks — across committees, ministries, and party lines — through which ideas can mature into outcomes. Parliament has the legitimacy and reach to convene a broader coalition: One that includes not just ministries, but state governments, industry leaders, educators, and, most importantly, young people themselves. This is not a call for grand new institutions, but for deeper use of the ones we already have. Take, for example, the MP's dual role: As a representative of their constituency, and as a voice within their party. In both roles, the youth employment agenda must become central. At the constituency level, MPs must ask — what does economic opportunity look like for young people in my district? Where are the gaps— in skilling, infrastructure, credit and employment? Tools like the YouthPOWER Index, developed by the Future of India Foundation, offer MPs granular data to help answer these questions and build targeted action plans. At the party level, internal deliberations must rise above sycophancy, partisanship and performative politics. The lived realities of young Indians— low-quality education, underemployment, and digital exclusion — require serious attention from party forums. MPs must ensure that their party's platforms and legislative strategies reflect these structural challenges, not just in rhetoric but in design. Youth employment requires a national compact This agenda cannot sit in any one stakeholder's corner. It requires coordinated effort across domains — from the Centre and states, government and opposition, public and private sector. Parliament can — and should — model this coordination. A dedicated 'Youth Priorities Day' during each session could create a structured space for multi-party dialogue on youth employment, skilling, and civic participation. Cross-party MP groups, formed voluntarily, could work together on specific themes — from gig worker protections to reforming recruitment processes. Committees could anchor these efforts by embedding youth-impact assessments into their reviews of legislation and budgets. Most importantly, Parliament must open structured pathways for engagement with India's youth themselves. A standing Youth–Public Policy Forum, under the Lok Sabha Secretariat, could bring together MPs, students, entrepreneurs, gig workers, and civil society on a regular basis. The goal would not be token consultation, but substantive dialogue — an acknowledgement that young Indians are not just beneficiaries of policy, but architects of its direction. From representation to real leadership This is a moment of opportunity. Parliament's engagement with youth employment can be made transformative. What is required now is regularity, structure, and political seriousness. The use of parliamentary questions should evolve from a method of information-gathering to a tool for agenda-setting. Budgetary scrutiny, legislative review, constituency planning — each must embed youth employment as a core lens. If Parliament steps up to lead, it can renew the public's faith in the capacity of democratic institutions to respond meaningfully to national challenges. The time is narrow, but it is ours In every era, democracies are tested by the needs of their youngest citizens. The story of Young India is replete with stories of perseverance and restless aspiration of a generation determined to build a better future. Their ambitions are not exceptional — but they represent a political and moral challenge to our polity. Parliament has the authority, the structure, and the precedent to act. The demographic dividend is not a promise. It is a window. And windows, by nature, close. This is Parliament's moment. Party leaders, committee chairs, and individual MPs must recognise the urgency and opportunity before them and meet the future with the seriousness it deserves. Ruchi Gupta, Vandita Gupta and Abhishek Sharma are with the Future of India Foundation. The complete report is available at
Time of India
04-05-2025
- General
- Time of India
RCNV donates Rs1 lakh to Symbiosis Centre for Skill Development
1 2 3 Nagpur: In a notable gesture of social commitment, the Rotary Club of Nagpur Vision (RCNV) donated Rs1 lakh to the Symbiosis Centre for Skill Development (SCSD) during an event titled ' Saksham Daan – Empowering Through Giving'. The initiative is aimed at supporting skill training for students from underprivileged backgrounds , helping them build brighter, self-reliant futures. The event was held at Symbiosis International University's Nagpur campus and was graced by several dignitaries from RCNV, including president Jaishree Chhabrani, Kamal Chhabrani, district governor Rajinder Singh Khurana, secretary Mufazzal Fidvi, and treasurer Jugal Kishore Agarwal. SCSD, the skill training arm of SIU, offers both affordable and free programmes in areas such as English communication, mobile repair, graphic designing, beautician and grooming. In addition to nominally charged courses, SCSD also implements government-backed schemes like PMKVY and ACKVK to provide free training to eligible youth. President Jaishree Chhabrani congratulated the students and acknowledged Priyesh Vijayvargi for his generous support towards the 'Saksham Daan' programme. Expressing gratitude, Jaiprakash Paliwal, director of SCSD, said, "This contribution reaffirms the collective vision of Rotary and Symbiosis — to empower youth not just with skills, but with dignity, confidence, and purpose. Truly, we are empowering through giving."
