India has undergone a digital transformation in recent years, resulting in a skills gap in a number of industries. In order to keep up with this change, what do the country's various stakeholders need to do?

A lot of youth pass out from college every year, and there are many new career options and job roles being added to various industries as well. However, according to our survey on LinkedIn, almost 78% of industry leaders believe that youth are still stuck in traditional degrees and lack practical knowledge. They do not have the awareness about the required skill sets that the new evolving industries want, resulting in wide skill development and employment gap.

Around 40% of IT professionals in India need to upskill themselves over the next few years while 48% of Indian employers report difficulties filling job vacancies due to talent shortages. The world has moved forward with advanced technologies like big data, artificial intelligence, etc becoming mainstream skill sets. The demand for these skills from the IT industry and other sectors has been going up, and we have to prepare ourselves to feed the rising need.

India is currently facing a skills gap in the technology industry. This means that there are more jobs available than there are people qualified to fill them.

For example;

• Data science is the fastest-growing field in India. Currently, India has over 180,000 data science jobs in 2022. The shortage of available data scientists is just as real as any other supply chain challenge.
• Global consulting leader Accenture estimates AI will add $957 billion to India’s GDP by 2035. The average salary of AI professionals in India across industries is quite attractive. Yet there were 4,000 unfilled AI positions in India in 2022.
• There are 4 million unfilled CyberSecurity jobs globally (Netsparker). India alone is expected to have over 1.5 million unfulfilled job vacancies in the field by 2025. Salaries of top cybersecurity talent have risen 25-35 per cent over the last couple of years.
• There is a similar shortage of talent in machine learning, UI/UX, robotics, etc.

How do we fix the problem?

India will have 67 per cent of its population in the working age group by 2025.

Technology is moving at a rate that has never been seen before. Professionals and students cannot afford to remain in the past where they thought that one degree will last an entire working career. Many industry leaders believe that introducing vocational courses at the school or college level can help build essential skills, but changing the college curriculum is a slow process. This leaves us vulnerable to technologies that upend an industry in a couple of years. In order to stay ahead of the curve, we need to find other ways to build the necessary skills for our workforce.

Students and professionals alike need to start taking matters into their own hands and realize that learning will be a life-long journey. We will need to constantly upgrade and upskill to stay relevant. This is where online learning platforms and on-the-job training methods can play critical roles, helping people acquire the most in-demand skills through a skill-based, mentor-driven, and industry-academia-partnered curriculum.

If India is able to provide the right skill to its youth, not only will it meet its own growing need for a skilled workforce but will also cater to the skill needs of the world. However, this requires intensely focused efforts in terms of skilling Indian youth. If this is done well, India could save itself and emerge as the Skill Capital of the world.

What are your thoughts on this curious case of the skill gap in India?

Let us know in the comments below.