Hiring intent revives in 2018 and Employability in Higher Education increases from 33% to 45% in 5 Years – India Skills Report 2018*

New Delhi, 9th February, 2018: A joint initiative of Wheebox, a Global Talent Assessment Company, PeopleStrong, a leading HR Tech Company and Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) was launched by Principal Adviser and Of NitiAayog along with secretaries of Dept. Of Industrial Policy, Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises(MSME), Ministry of Labour and Employment(MoLE), Ministry Of Rural Development (MoRD), Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE), Chairman-AICTE and Founder & CEO, of Wheebox in Delhi today.

The comprehensive talent demand and supply report is Backed by renowned partners like Pearson, United Nations Development Programme, AICTE, AIU and various state governments, the fifth edition of India Skills Report, captures insights and trends from the largest employability test that was spread out to 5200 Universities and Professional Institutions in India. The test reached out to more than 5 lakh students across 29 states and 7 Union Territories on the talent supply side, along with India hiring intent – a primary research survey on the talent demand side that reached out to over 120+ employers across 12 major industry verticals for talent demand.

Finding of Wheebox states that employability amongst the fresh talent has increased significantly in the past 5 years. While in 2014, the percentage of employable population was a paltry 33%, it has achieved a 5.6% increase to rest at a respectable 45.60% this year. While this might not be the most positive news today, but the change that has happened over years looks tremendous. The key domains where the increase in employability has been very significant is Engineering, Pharma, MCA and other focused professional courses. It has been found by Wheebox, that focused vocational courses are creating more job ready candidates than generic courses. Also the courses where practical experience and internships, have been included in the formal course content are faring better. Another important aspect that has emerged from the supply side, came in the form of a reduction in employability amongst MBA courses. There is no such visible evidence It seems that with exponential increase in the number of MBA colleges the quality of talent is seen to be declining, which needs government attention.

From the demand side there is a positive indication as companies show a revival in their hiring intent. As per the India Hiring Intent survey,organisations across sectors expect 10-15% increase in hiring intent from last year to this year. While Retail, Banking, Financial Services and Insurance sectors are anticipating an increase in the pace of hiring. Sectors like ITES, Software, Hardware and IT also foresee a moderate change in hiring numbers.

This year the Wheebox report has laid special focus on future jobs and the impact of automation to understand how they see jobs evolving in response to technology and innovation. The results are astounding: 69% of the respondents clearly foresee the impact of automation. Adding to this, 24%
employers indicate Analytics and 15% foresee Artificial Intelligence as the emerging jobs.

Another interesting insight from the Wheebox report is that close to 80% of candidates assessed are keen to explore internship opportunities and they believe that internship will help them in being employable, whereas 85% of the candidates feel that they are not fully equipped with information or guidance to take a conscious, thought-out career decision.

Mr. Nirmal Singh, Founder and CEO of Wheebox, said India Skills Report
findings this year has seen an improvement in employability which is a good
sign for the economy. The Govt. efforts towards skill development specially in higher and vocational training institutions are paving the way for quality hiring. Moreover the efforts from the government &
institutions are showing a positive trend. He further added, new career opportunity like AI, Robotics and data analytics are indicating an upward trend for these sectors.

Mr. Pankaj Bansal, Co-founder and CEO of PeopleStrong, said “We as a country are undergoing a phase of upward transition as we embrace the impact of digitization and automation in our lives. A lot of effort is needed both at the talent supply side and the demand side to ensure we complete this phase with flying colors. What is reassuring is that our analytics show we are definitely on the right track“.