Globalisation and market forces are creating opportunities across countries on a scale never seen before. Unfortunately, there is also a widening skills gap. The resulting battle for talent is not just between companies, but also between countries; notice how today ‘reverse brain drain’ is helping India’s and China’s economies.

With 900 million ‘globalised’ workers in the world, sheer numbers are not the problem in the current talent shortage. Rather, the gap is shaped by geography, migration, demographics and education, with all the signs pointing towards an even bigger problem in the coming years. Demographics is a case in point; its most dramatic effect will be in Europe and Japan. By 2025, the number of people aged 15-64 is projected to fall by 7 per cent in Germany, 9 per cent in Italy and 14 per cent in Japan. It will have an effect on China and also in the US where the retirement of the baby-boomers means that companies will lose large numbers of experienced workers over a short period.

India has the demographic advantage and this begets the question, how can a country with a billion people suffer from talent shortages? One of the reasons can be observed easily — only 11 per cent of the relevant age group in India go on to higher education. Another cause for the skill gap lies in the quality of talent being churned out. Every year, India produces around 25 lakh university graduates, including 4 lakh engineers and 2 lakh IT professionals. The National Association for Software and Services Companies (Nasscom) estimates that only 25 per cent of these technical graduates and 10-15 per cent of other graduates are considered employable by the rapidly growing IT and ITeS segments.

I believe we should see the silver lining in the talent shortage in India; there is a huge well of opportunity behind the cover of scarcity.

Nasscom predicts that India’s IT sector will face a shortfall of 5 lakh professionals by 2010 while a recent IDC report suggests India will experience a shortfall of 1.18 lakh skilled IT networking professionals in 2008 alone.

Evalueserve predicts a demand for over 1.6 lakh foreign language professionals in the Indian offshoring industry by 2010 to address the demand for language-sensitive work. And, the talent shortage goes beyond the IT industry.

This talent gap can be addressed better if the youth of India are educated and trained at a certain level of quality. The current state of affairs presents a compelling case for private-public partnership through industry-academia alliances to enhance talent development amongst the youth at the grassroots level. Many IT companies are now partnering with engineering colleges and universities to build much-needed engagement between industry and academia, even creating universally accepted benchmarks like certifications and policy-level curriculum changes. Educational institutions can update the syllabus of professional academic courses to make them more industry relevant, with regular updates from professionals who have a deeper understanding of current business developments and technical standards.

There’s also a rising trend of talent development in organisations in India mostly through a two-pronged approach — pipeline development and workforce re-skilling. GE’s famed Learning Centre in Crotonville in the US is a great example of the success of such initiatives.

Corporate India needs to take the lead in training development to benefit the wider community and build an army of ‘knowledge workers,’ to borrow Peter Drucker’s term.

The Cisco Networking Academy programme, for instance, partners with over 170 institutes in India aiming to create a supply of world-class IT professionals in the country and help bridge the digital divide. If leading companies from across industries can step forward to advance talent development, we could make the youth of today competitive, thus supporting long-term local sustainable development and also addressing global demand.

Arguably, talent has become the world’s most sought-after commodity. I remember reading some time ago that GE Capital had boards in its Indian offices saying ‘Trespassers Will Be Recruited’! If we all work together, we can give the youth of India a better chance to follow their dreams and be assured of a place in the rapidly evolving global economy.

(The writer is President and Country Manager, India and SAARC, Cisco.)

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