Article: Solving unemployment issues in the electronics sector – A Job or a Skill Deficit?

Skilling

Solving unemployment issues in the electronics sector – A Job or a Skill Deficit?

Heres a look at how the gap between demand and supply of talent is being bridged.
Solving unemployment issues in the electronics sector – A Job or a Skill Deficit?

The Indian economy is growing at a fast pace. It is moving towards becoming a Global Economic powerhouse and likely to overtake China. What is noteworthy is that the economic growth is caused by the increase in aggregate demand and aggregate supply. And a mismatch between the two may hamper this growth. According to the quarterly Employment Survey of the Labour and Employment Ministry, the estimated employment in eight top sectors stands at 20.52 million in the country whereas, in India, less than 4% of the workforce is skilled.

Demand and supply mismatch and its associated impact

Undoubtedly, India is facing a paradoxical situation where on one hand young men and women entering the labor market are looking for jobs; on the other hand, industries are complaining about the unavailability of an appropriately skilled workforce. 

The electronics industry is also facing an acute problem of mismatch between demand and availability of job roles resulting in no jobs. The industry is on a path of unprecedented growth, and as per the Policy on Electronics, the country will achieve a market size of USD 400 billion by 2022. The policy envisions the creation of 28.5 million jobs in the electronics sector. The sector is riding on Smart Cities, Solar and LED, Connected devices, Semi-conductor, Industry 4.0 and Artificial Intelligence, that will give rise to a huge demand for skilled workforce and there is an existing gap in the above sectors between the required skills and job ready youth. 

Decoding jobless growth in various sectors

The last two decades have witnessed the growth in the Indian economy, which has primarily been riding on the service sector, leading to growth both in employment and wages in this sector. The agriculture sector employs 45% of the population but contributes only 15% to the GDP, whereas the service sector is the biggest contributor to the country’s GDP but employs less than 30% of the population.

The IT and Financial services are drivers of service sector growth in last two decades, but both sectors are not employment intensive, thus contributing to jobless growth in India.

The labor-intensive manufacturing sector did not become the engine of growth in India as they should have been, but the knowledge-intensive services sector along with some segments of capital-intensive manufacturing were the engines of growth in India over the last two years.

Now the government is giving a push to manufacturing with programs like Make in India, Digital India, Make for India, etc. are contributing towards employment generation and the next decade will witness India as an emerging economic powerhouse riding on manufacturing and production.

Skilling the future of Electronics

As the electronics sector expands, there is going to be a huge demand for trained and skilled workforce. The demand will be for skilled workforce and employers want specialized skills for specific job roles. The opportunity has to be tapped into, and a large pool of skilled workforce has to be created to fill the existing demand-supply gap created.

Currently, there is a lack of sufficient infrastructure to generate so many skilled workers, and the government has realized this. Bridging this skill gap could only be achieved by creating a national framework to recognize and certify skills, which were absent in India. So the Govt. of India introduced the National Skill Qualification Framework- NSQF levels to address the issue based on the National Occupation Standard aligned to global standards.

The whole eco-system has been carefully built to create a robust skilling environment. The ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship also has been created to envision the skill development programme and National Skill Development Corporation created as an umbrella body to anchor and implement the government’s vision of skilled India. 

The government has identified key sectors and created Sector Skills Councils to develop a structured mechanism for skill-based training and be a certifying authority under the NSQF. Likewise, ‘Electronics Sector Skills Council of India’ has been created for skilling the youth in the Electronics sector.

ESSCI has developed "Qualification-Packs (QPs)/National Occupational Standards (NOS)” for generating Training programs for Skill-Development for different Job-Roles in Electronics Design and Manufacturing (ESDM) Industry. These QPs/NOSs have been drafted by conducting enough research and analysis of the Labour Market Information System (LIMS) of the industry and by conducting Occupational mapping from Functional & Skill Gap Analysis.  

QPs/NOSs have been developed for 11 Job Roles in ‘Semiconductor Design and Manufacturing ‘sub-sector of the ESDM Industry. These require to be validated by subject-matter experts from the relevant industry, before being finalized and converted into Course Curriculum and Assessment Plan for imparting training for specific job roles. It will ensure minimizing the jobs deficit and ensure a constant supply of adequately trained and skilled workforce.

To Sum Up:

Our efforts in the recent years have been to set these pillars of growth and create sustainable growth engine across sectors as India moves towards becoming ‘knowledge economy.’ It is already growing day by day, and with skilling becoming integral, India will be able to make a commendable mark in the global economic growth map.

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Topics: Skilling, Talent Management, #Jobs

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