New Delhi: India will need 30 million digitally skilled professionals by 2026, and about 50% of the current workforce would require to re-skill themselves in areas of emerging technologies, a new report suggests. A “significant” skill deficit in India could cause more than two million jobs in artificial intelligence (AI), cybersecurity and blockchain to remain unfilled in 2023, also suggested in a report.
According to the report called ‘Skills Strategies for a Strong, Sustainable and Balanced World of Work’, India will need 30 million digitally skilled professionals by 2026. As much as 50 per cent of the workforce would need to re-skill in areas of emerging technologies. “Companies are becoming desperate for a skilled workforce. As they continue to struggle to find the skills they are looking for, their competitiveness and growth prospects are at risk. At the same time, an enormous and continuously growing chunk of unemployed and underemployed remain inaccessible for most companies due to the skill gap,” said the report.
“Today India has about 500 million people of working age and despite that, we continue to face a skill crisis. Industry data suggests that only 49 per cent of total youth (age group of 22-25 years) in the country is employable. In fact, our own survey has indicated that 75 per cent of companies face a skill gap in the industry. Even among people, who can stay in their current jobs, 40 per cent of fundamental abilities are likely to change and thus re-aligning the skill strategy will be crucial for companies,” said Rituparna Chakraborty, co-founder and executive director of TeamLease Services and chief executive officer, TeamLease Digital.
“The workplace is evolving so rapidly that 76% of the global workforce is not equipped with the requisite skills to function in the new digitally focused workplaces. As organizations across the globe adopt new pedagogies for skilling, it would serve them well to look upon skill development as an integral step to creating long-term value for the organization,” said Chakraborty. According to the World Economic Forum, investing in upskilling could boost India’s economy by $570 billion by creating 2.3 million new jobs by 2030, the report added.
