According to India Skills Report 2022, just 48.7% of India's youth is employable. This means that nearly one in every two Indian youngsters is unemployed. In a study, it was found that roughly 75% of all organizations acknowledged a fundamental skill gap in the industry which happens to be the major reason behind the existing unemployment rate in India.

What is a skill gap?

The discrepancy between the skills essential for a profession and the skills an individual has is alluded to as the skills gap. Employees may not be able to perform their respective jobs due to the lack of skills required to complete the specific task. As per the recent data, just 10% of fresh graduates are employable, and the remaining 90% lack the necessary skills to be employed by corporations. India's GDP is increasing at a rapid rate of approximately 6% to 8%, but there are not enough job creations to cater to the increasing unemployment rate in India.

In 2015-16, The Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY) was launched by the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship by National Skill Development Corporation with the goal of reaching 24 lakh youth across the country. The scheme's goal was to enable a significant number of Indians to participate in career-oriented skill training. Under Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL), all the candidates with prior learning experience were identified, tested and certified.

PMKVY trained around 19.85 lakh people in 375 different jobs during its trial period itself. Around 2.53 lakh people have been placed out of the entire number of people who have been trained. It was a merit-based programme, with successful candidates receiving the full cost of training as a bonus.

Why do skill gaps exist among Indian graduates?

As per the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (Social Statistics Division), India now enjoys a relative advantage over other nations in terms of young population distribution. According to India's census, India has the world's youngest population, with 600 million youth as of 2018 and an average age of 26.8 years. As per the Managing Director and CEO of Center for Monitoring Indian Economy, Mahesh Vyas, “companies will pay very high wages to get skilled labor, demand for lesser skilled people is very low in the economy.”

When we look at the labor participation rate or LPR, we can see that India's LPR has been continuously dropping since 2016-17. The LPR is a measure of the proportion of a country's workforce aged 15 and up who actively engage in the labor market. Prior to the arrival of Covid-19, it had reduced by 77 basis points in 2018-19. These dwindling figures reveal the unpleasant reality of India's economic development. The pandemic has only made the situation worse for the nation as it has for the world.

Digitalization of the world made the work more fluid and versatile. It appears that the workplace is no longer defined by an office or a manufacturing plant. With the help of smart technology, employees were able to work from the comfort of their own homes. In this situation, the shift had a liberating impact, granting autonomy to employees who were technologically skilled. However, there was a drawback to this situation that must be considered: the number of employees who were not trained or comfortable working on a digital platform had to suffer as a result. Their incompetence became the cause of their dismissal.

Suggestions to Solve Unemployment Gap

The only way out is to upskill the working population in order to reap the benefits of the workforce. Keeping this in mind, the Prime Minister announced Skill India in 2015, an initiative aimed at training over 400 million people by 2022. According to research issued by the World Economic Forum in January, investing in upskilling can enhance India's GDP by $570 billion by 2030. It is expected to add 2.3 million jobs by 2030, second only to the United States' 2.7 million. Change in education will help India achieve its goal of not only creating a soaring number of job opportunities for youngsters but also will ensure that the candidates have suitable skill sets to fulfill the requirements.

Recommendations:

Could anyone have predicted that one day, robots and computers will take over the majority of human work? However, in recent years, the number of jobs that have been totally replaced by robots without the need for humans has increased dramatically. Companies all around the world are switching to robots because they can work for longer periods of time, make fewer errors, and demand investment rather than a large compensation. Working on skills that are or will be substituted by robots in the future is, without a doubt, pointless. In such a case, it is important to recognize the market-essential skills and start working on them. This will help a great deal with bridging India’s unemployment gap.

EdTech firms such as KidsChaupal.com and others are striving to create platforms devoted specifically to bridging the unemployment gap and improving system efficiency. Several courses have been introduced keeping in mind the growing unemployment gap. With the right guidance and trained educators, a new curriculum has been designed to keep up with the global trends. Online education portals allow a fruitful integration of mentors and learners and ease the communication process to acquire necessary skills that help bridge the increasing unemployment gap across the nation. Do check out our website to learn more about these courses and register your kid for job-oriented courses right away!

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