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Japan, Germany, Mauritius seek more Indian talent: EAM S Jaishankar

Japan, Mauritius, Germany, and several other countries are keen on welcoming more Indian talent into their economies, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said on Tuesday. The demand for Indian talent is already significant in Malaysia and Singapore. Speaking at the launch of the Global Access to Talent from India (Gati) foundation, an immigration-focused initiative aimed at building scalable immigration pathways for Indian talent to key global markets, Jaishankar said Mauritius wants to establish a flow of Indian workers across different domains and has concluded an understanding with New Delhi. "The Speaker of Japan was here yesterday to advocate an action plan that would create a concrete and predictable flow of Indian skills to his country. It would help take forward the specialized skilled workers agreement (SSWA) concluded a few years ago," Jaishankar stressed. Australia and Germany have seen a significant increase in working Indians through migration and mobility partnerships as well as through SSWAs with 22 nations, the minister said. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz had spoken of increasing the employment visas for Indians by four times. "My counterparts in Italy, and the Ambassador here before me, in Spain, in Austria, in Greece, have all shown an appetite to tap into our human resources pool as urgently and effectively as possible," the Jaishankar said. In May 2023, India signed a deal with Israel to send 42,000 Indians working in the construction industry. Both sides are keen to expand it further. According to the data from the Ministry of External Affairs, 6,694 Indians were working with 195 Israeli firms as of early-March. Jaishankar said sharper strategic competition among major powers and the insecurities of the Covid experience have spurred sharp demographic changes and demands of new technologies and their diffusion, and led to the emergence of the global workplace. There are 34 million Indians and PIOs living and working abroad, of which about half are Indian citizens. "Given global trends, the possibility of expanding that, even in the near term, is very serious," Jaishankar said. The government is planning to update the Emigration Act 1983, which regulates mobility, Jaishankar said. 'It was designed to address the demands of a particular geography in a certain era. However, times have changed and our vistas have expanded. We need to be more promotional and aware of new possibilities,' Jaishankar said. 'It is vital that we promote legal mobility and strongly discourage non-legal ones. The challenge of the black economy has to be faced, from the viewpoint of the talent flow, our societal good as well as of national security,' he added. As part of its aim of positioning India as a leading 'Global Talent Hub', Gati aims to unlock global labour mobility for Indians by building scalable and circular migration pathways through a collaborative ecosystem of governments, businesses and nonprofits. It aims to increase the share of inward remittance in India's GDP from the current 2.5 per cent to 4-5 per cent, unlocking $170 billion. Raising the annual overseas migrant flow to 2-2.5 million is another target. It has been set up by Ashish Dhawan-led Convergence Foundation, the Godrej Foundation, and Manish Sabharwal, Vice-Chairman of Teamlease Services. It is in talks with a few states and the Centre for partnerships.