India to grab most foreign jobs by 2020

New Delhi, Dec 31: With a surplus of 47 million skilled manpowerin 2020, India is poised to grab a major share of direct and indirectjobs from major global companies as they are expected to face ashortfall of skilled workforce.

India has one of the youngest population in the world today andthis will be so till about the year 2050. It is estimated that by theyear 2020, India will have about 325 million people in the age group of20 to 35 years, constituting 25 per cent of its population.

In comparison China will have about 308 million people in the same age group, constituting 21 per cent of its population.

''India will have a surplus manpower of 47 million by the year2020, against a global manpower shortage of 39 million. This translatesinto a huge opportunity for India. In fact, India has the capability tocreate up to 36 million new direct jobs and opportunity to generatemany more indirect jobs,'' says the industry body CII.

While the absolute numbers spell global opportunity, an importantissue that needs immediate attention is employability of the graduatingpotential workforce.

Given the pace of economic growth especially in the servicessector, the demand for skill sets is rising at a faster pace and thecurrent education system is unable to support this demand thus leadingto huge gap in skills set necessary to sustain the current levels ofgrowth in services sector, CII points out.

The IT and the BPO sector are experiencing this at present andthere can be future shortage in upcoming sectors like tourism, retail,financial and construction.

These shortages tend to fuel attrition rates, unprecedented salaryincreases and companies are forced to resort to unethical practices ofpoaching manpower.

For instance, the average attrition rates in BPO companies varyfrom 40 per cent to 60 per cent and annual salary increases areanywhere from 10 per cent to 20 per cent per annum.

''Such a trend for a sustained duration can erode India's competitiveness in the global market,'' the chamber says.

Consider the education system of India. While India has one of thelargest number of universities (311) and colleges (16,000), just aboutthree million are graduating each year out of a 120 million youngpeople in the age group of 17 to 22 years.

Higher education is again accessible to just one per cent of thegraduates. On the other hand, about 14 per cent of the total studentsin the US are from India. This itself speaks about the huge supplyconstraint for quality education.

The excessive regulation on the education system has led to rigidand inflexible course curriculum, which inturn has constraineddevelopment and advancement of skill sets.

In light of this, there is a need for further opening up of theforeign direct investment in the education systems and encourage moreinstitutes to come up.

In order to address this constraint, CII Services Council recommends involvment of private sector in education and training.

''Activities pertaining to training teachers, building andupdating curriculums, setting up recruitment centres etc are some ofthe possibilities.'' Second, there has to be a focus on increasingemployability. More opportunities to be made available by privatesector for providing on-the-job training to young men and women. Suchon-the-job training will facilitate practical skills along withacademic curriculum.

Third, there is a need for increasing capacities and capabilities.Capacities can only be increased through more number of educationinstitutes and this is where the government and the private sectorneeds to work hand-in-hand for setting up many new institutes.

Capabilities demand more number of trained teachers and facilities made available for education and training, the council says.

UNI