As the nation acquires more skilled workers to realise its “Make in India” dream, the largest employing sector of agriculture is expected to lose about 2.5 crore skilled farmers by 2022, while beauty and wellness sector is expected to witness the maximum growth in the next seven years, in terms of skilled workforce.
Overall, India Inc will need nearly 12 crore skilled workforce across 24 sectors and another 46 crore people will need up-skilling or re-skilling, according to a recent survey conducted by the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC).
The employment base in these 24 sectors in 2013 was 45.94 crore, which is projected to increase to 57.86 crore in 2022. Thus there will be an incremental human resource requirement of 11.91 crore in the 2013-22 period, Dilip Chenoy, Managing Director and CEO, NSDC, told BusinessLine.
“In our contemporary, aspirational India, beauty products have become affordable to many. This, along with increasing urbanisation and the impact of TV commercials, has made these products accessible. Even male grooming is on the rise with products like male creams becoming popular—in urban India, according to ace hair stylist Javed Habib, there are 15-20 popular haircuts and in rural areas 3-4. Women, in particular, feel they can earn a few thousand more rupees to support their families by becoming beauticians. All these reasons have made beauty and wellness sectors a major job creator.”
According to NSDC, skilled workforce in beauty and wellness sector would grow thrice as much, from 40 lakh in 2013 to 1.42 crore in 2022, making it the fastest growing job creator.
On the other hand, the skilled workforce in agriculture would decrease from 24 crore to 21.5 crore during the period—making it the only sector requiring reduced number of skilled workforce.
Chenoy said the main reasons for this decrease are increasing mechanisation of agriculture, migration of many farmhands from permanent to temporary/seasonal nature of work and increase in productivity in areas like oilseeds, sugarcane, cotton etc.
Of the 24 sectors surveyed by NSDC, the five sectors that would require the maximum skilled workforce are: Building construction and real estate (3.11 crore), retail (1.71 crore), beauty and wellness (1.42 crore), transportation and logistics (1.16 crore), and furniture and furnishing (71 lakh). The top 10 sectors, out of 24, will account for 80% of skilled workforce requirements.
Skilled workforce in Information Technology and IT-enabled services (ITeS) is expected to grow from 27 lakh to 51 lakh during this period. While technology upgradation and automation is likely to trigger job losses in industries like call centres, it would be offset by an increasing use of IT in cyber security, policing, logistics and e-commerce which would be the main driving force to create newer jobs, Chenoy added.
The skill-gap report was commissioned by NSDC and authored by leading international consulting firm KPMG, the objective being to understand sectorial and geographical spread of existing skill requirements. The figures were estimated on the basis of extensive stakeholder engagement including small, medium and large enterprises in every sector as well as Sector Skill Councils (SSCs), training providers in the skills space and academia. More than 1,000 industry experts, 19 SSCs, 110 training institutions and over 1,500 trainees were engaged for the studies.