'Encourage Corporates To Enter New Sectors For More Jobs'

With the big budget announcement on Wednesday, BW Businessworld brought together an expert panel to discuss the challenges of job creation and skill development and how India needs to pitch in for newer segments for employing the future workforce.

Giving a background of the schools and colleges, Subhankar Ghose, chief people officer, Zoom Insurance Brokers, says how there is a huge gap in terms of expectation and actual realisation when it comes to jobs.

"The candidates who come from different background with the baggage of hefty loans are left at the mercy of the campus placements which is not a very glossy picture in India in the last few years," Ghose said.

This brings into light the huge gap in the skilling and employment as well.

"We need to adopt a blue ocean strategy. If the current job creation strategy is not working then we need to seek new opportunities and also give access to corporate to enter into new segments, say for instance catering to the markets outside which would bring in new areas of employability for the workforce", Ghose said.

Despite of the ongoing reforms including Digital India and Make in India, there is a lack of monitoring when it comes to giving licenses and the manpower employed at the ground level to undertake these reforms, according to Ghose.

"There is a false notion that manufacturing could create more jobs as most of the system is coming under automation and mechanisation", according to Yogesh Mishra, VP, Thomas Assessment.

Mishra wants a new beginning as the world is moving towards automation.

"There is a challenge of not just employment generation but also making people employable which in short term could be tackled by SOPs and tax holidays but for long term it needs infrastructure development and create solutions with the changing world economy and machine learning", he said.

"Sixty-five per cent of the population is India is under 35 years of age which could be either a time bomb or an asset", said Mishra, who suggests India could step up innovation and go a further step in respective sectors such as farming to food processing which is highly employable.

Mishra said that the government schemes like MGNREGA and minimum income schemes will not bring in long term solutions until the people under the same are skilled and equipped for better employability services.

Garima Gulati, VP, HR, Client Associates, brought up the startup ecosystem issues.

Gulati said the things in new space die out in India as one initiative is pulled back by the rest.

"There is an extra effort required to support the right kind of ideas and spread awareness amongst the workforce regarding the skills they need to become employable."