Skilling Beauty To Be A Bread Winner

The beauty and wellness industry is witnessing a boom globally. The wellness industry in India touched Rs 1,00,000 crore (Rs 1 trillion) in 2015, growing at a compounded annual rate of 18 per cent from about Rs 70,000 crore in 2012. It has a likely shortage of 600,000 skilled personnel.

The biggest challenge for this sector is skilled manpower. The beauty and wellness sector in India is largely unorganized and fragmented, with inadequate attention paid to quality and processes. The KPMG’s Human Resource and Skill Requirement report for the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) states that the workforce requirement in this sector was likely to triple from 4.21 million in 2013 to 7.39 million in 2017 and to 14.27 million by 2022.

Measures to tackle such challenges have proved futile in the past. Recognising this reality, a not-for-profit organisation, the Beauty & Wellness Sector Skill Council (B&W SSC) has been promoted by the CII, with financial support from the NSDC. The council acts as a fulcrum for skill development in the beauty and wellness sector.

The council has embarked upon a Master Trainer Training programme in which ten experts will train the faculty of the partners affiliated with B&W SSC. Skill development through such training programmes will improve the quality of service in this domain by ensuring consistency of standards, besides creating jobs. We also aim to aggressively partner with private enterprise and PSUs on CSR projects aimed at providing livelihood through skill- based train
ing. By 2023, the B&W SSC aims to accredit 390 training organisations, train 2,200 trainers, and certify a workforce of almost 1.67 million.

The initiative will ensure excellence in vocational proficiency, backed by holistic skill development in the B&W sector and help reduce the skill deficit in it. Holders of B&WSSC certificates have an edge in the industry. As the chairperson of the B&W SSC and the founder and vice-chairperson of VLCC, I’m happy to share that I can already foresee the shaping of a ‘New India’ with an effective and efficient eco-system for skills for the Beauty and Wellness industry. For instance, VLCC Institutes are in their 15th year and we find employment opportunities for students. Our network of over 75 VLCC Institutes across India and South Asia provide skilled manpower to the wellness industry at large. Students are absorbed across industry depending on the job role, students emerging from top-tier skilling institutions get attractive salary packages. All of this is backed by the huge transformational scheme, the Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY), which aims to make India the ‘Skills Capital’ of the world by 2022. This puts focus on skill development in this domain, which empowers women, strengthens the Beti Bachao Beti Padhao initiative and promotes financial inclusion through government schemes like the Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana.

We can clearly see that vocational training in this sector has lured the youth, women and men to these training programmes, so they may get an attractive job and/or run their own businesses. Today, the need of the hour requires that all organised players in this industry come together on a national platform to engage, enroll and employ.