India has the potential to become the world’s hub for sourcing skilled labour, apart from meeting the country’s demand, Human Resources Development (HRD) Minister M. M. Pallam Raju said.

He was speaking at the 6th HR Summit 2013 — Reviving Economic Growth and Development: Leveraging Human Capital — organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in Mumbai.

Pallam Raju said the biggest challenge was to make the large workforce more employable. Of the 4 lakh engineering students who graduated every year, only 20 per cent are employable. He said the National Policy for Skill Development aims to create a skilled workforce of 500 million by 2022. The 12th Plan has a modest target of providing skills to 80 million by 2017, he said.

The Minister said India’s average age by 2022 will be 29 years against 40 years in the US, 46 years in Japan, and 47 years in Europe. Despite rapid growth over the last decade, there has not been a substantial creation of new jobs, he admitted.

Performance metric

ICICI Bank MD and CEOChanda Kochhar said every sector of India’s economy would have to perform if the country was to create 12 million jobs every year to absorb the rising numbers entering the workforce each year.

She pointed out that India must stay wary of the middle-income trap, wherein the country becomes old before it becomes rich.

She said 60 per cent of India’s population was less than 30 years of age, and the median age was 25 years. Even by 2030, India’s median age would be about 30 years of age, which will give it a low dependency ratio.

“India will continue to stay young even as the world ages. Over the next two decades, India will add 25 per cent to the world’s incremental workforce,” she said.

vageesh.ns@thehindu.co.in

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