India positioning itself to emerge as skills capital of the world

As machines get smarter and the world gets more specialised, India is taking significant strides towards becoming the skills capital of the world.

The government is drawing up an ambitious skilling upgrade plan, which is aimed at training and supplying skilled workers globally while forging partnerships with nearly 30 countries in need of a competent workforce.

The World Youth Skills Day (July 15) is a great reminder of the need to skill and equip our workforce with tools and techniques that will help companies and societies benefit from new changes and have a future-ready workforce in place.

Harshvendra Soin, global chief people officer and Head (Marketing), Tech Mahindra, states, "We need to recalibrate our efforts towards skilling. In the current scenario, the workforce being a part of the reskilling revolution is imperative.”

According to the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs report, 50 per cent of all employees will need reskilling by 2025, escalating the need to upskill and reskill the employees. As organisations are gradually becoming digitally savvy, upskilling employees in future technologies are crucial to avoid any gap between the skillsets available and the organization’s needs, the proverbial demand-supply phenomenon. As Anku Jain, MD, MediaTek India, says “new-age disruptive technologies such as AI, IoT, ML, and cloud computing have become the core of everything we do, and this momentum demands new digital skill sets.”