‘India Skills Report 2020’ Overall Positive Trend In Comparison With the Past 6 Years for Talent Supply

New Delhi: India Skills Report 2019-20 that was released today showed an overall positive trend in comparison with the past 6 years for talent supply. The report states that about 46% of students were found to be employable or ready to take-up jobs as against 33% in 2014.  Wheebox findings stated that the most employable candidates as per the courses were MBA Students with 54% as against 40% in the last two years.  B. Pharma, Polytechnic, B.Com and BA courses, on the other hand, saw an improvement in employability which is increased by more than 15%.  This year, the decline in employability is seen in B.Tech, Engineering. MCA graduates, Technical & Computer-related courses.

The Wheebox findings also elaborated on the states with the highest employability – Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, and Uttar Pradesh. Mumbai followed by Hyderabad showed the highest employable cities. Bengaluru, New Delhi, Pune, Lucknow, and Chennai have maintained their presence in the top 10 list over the past 6 years.   States that registered a dip in their ranking were West Bengal (2ndin last year) and Haryana which could not make it into the top 10 list.

According To Nirmal Singh, Founder & CEO of Wheebox,  “PM Modi’s vision of India becoming $5T economy requires increasing the per-capita income of Indians which can happen only when people get the employment which consequently demands the skills and useful talent. To achieve that, along with the universities & the colleges in India, various emerging startups are already using innovative technologies to facilitate skill up-gradation, job creation, internships and workforce management on their platforms. Fortunately, it has improved the availability of employable talent, 33.9% in 2014 to around 47% in 2019, as per India Skills Report 2019. Now, this workforce will be required to be tapped into its full potential to achieve the objective of our nation.”

He further added that it is extremely important for students to build an attitude of learning and gaining knowledge rather than focusing on degrees. They need to constantly build upon it, improve it, and make decisions in the face of uncertainties and new challenges of the 21st century. The government and training institutes should ensure superior educational content and ease of access to training/skilling programs across cities, towns, and suburbs.

The employability scores amongst men and women both are at par on employability scores. Like the previous year, female employability showed an upward trend for this year, climbing from

38% in 2017; 46% in 2018 and  47% in this year.  The increase in the number of job-ready women presents an opportunity for India Inc to harness their talent and engage more women in jobs as this is the most essential step in filling the skills gap in the country.  The talent pool of women can be found in Telangana, Rajasthan, and Delhi & at the city level, Hyderabad, Ghaziabad, and Visakhapatnam constitute the top three cities to have the most employable female talent pool.

This year, India skills report also analyzed on candidate preferences. 65% of the students require direction on skills training & internship opportunities. The students have also laid importance upon the interactions with companies, which is deemed necessary to stay updated on the job requirements. Overall the students feel the necessity to connect with the industry to learn and explore their knowledge horizons. More than 94% of students believe that the apprenticeship of 3-12 months will improve their employability to a great extent.

India Skills Report is a joint initiative of Wheebox (a Global Talent Assessment Company), Taggd by PeopleStrong and Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in collaboration with UNDP, AICTE & AIU.  The Wheebox National Employability Test (WNET) survey was conducted from July 2019 to November 2019. More than 300,000 students participated across 3500 educational institutions in India’s one of the most notable employability tests conducted nationwide