Only 33% of professionals take upskilling courses for salary hikes: Simplilearn
Simplilearn, a leading digital skills training provider, published the findings of its annual survey titled “Digital Transformation and Future of Tech Jobs in India”. The survey provides insights into how digital transformation is impacting the Indian workforce. Simplilearn surveyed over 1750 learners and IT professionals in India to understand their views on upskilling, emerging digital skills, and the nature of future jobs.
Digitization is today transforming businesses globally and across India. Organizations are gradually integrating new technologies like AI and machine learning, which are proving effective in increasing productivity and efficiency at workplaces. Remarkably, 44.7% of respondents shared that the company’s shift to digitization has motivated them to invest in upskilling themselves. 25.6% of the survey respondents stated that digitization has helped improve their performance at work, and 12.7% said that it opened new project opportunities. Another 7.9% said it attracted new job opportunities.
Automation will soon replace job roles that involve repetitive tasks, and in turn, it will create new job opportunities in the field of technology. A World Economic Forum report stated that AI will create 58 million new jobs by 2022; this is a strong indicator of the need to upskill and reskill employees. The survey highlights that the interest in skills related to AI and Machine learning has increased from 18% in 2018 to 30 % in 2019. Including AI and ML, the top 4 new skills for 2020 include 26% for Data science, 18% for cloud computing, and 10% for cybersecurity.
With rising digital transformation across sectors, AI, Data Science, and Cloud Computing remain the fields with the highest demand for 2020. The report predicts the average yearly salary of a Data Scientist will be between Rs 5 lakh to 42 lakh, followed by the range of Rs 4.97 lakh to 50 lakh per year for someone in Cloud Computing and Rs 5 lakh to 70 lakh per year for Artificial Intelligence related jobs.
For organizations today, it is of utmost importance to invest in digitally upskilling their employees to prevent both the company and its workforce from becoming obsolete. 58.3% of survey respondents stated that they take up upskilling courses at their own cost, while 10.5% have the company sponsoring. The remaining 31.2% indicated that they and their organizations contribute together to the cost of upskilling programs.
Sharing his views on the Simplilearn annual survey, Krishna Kumar, Founder and CEO of Simplilearn, said, “With the maturing technology sector, employers are looking for validation of an employee’s skill sets with relevant certification. Professionals do understand that they need to upskill to stay relevant in their careers and are focusing on getting hands-on learning from the digital skilling courses they take up. We are today seeing a rise in self-financed training by professionals, as compared to 2018. Though this method of training is gaining traction, sizable shares of professionals still depend on their organizations to fund their upskilling needs. Therefore time is now for enterprises to make L&D a boardroom discussion.”
Beyond the challenges to upskill lies the motivation level of a professional. As per the survey, the top three reasons for upskilling are as follows and highlights that salary hikes remain a strong motivator for upskilling, with 33% of professionals agreeing. Survey respondents cited additional motivating factors: 27% of professionals choose to upskill to get opportunities related to hands-on and industry-relevant projects, and another 21% wish to upskill for rewards and recognition.
Today, the Indian workforce understands that their roles will evolve as technology progresses. As they feel the impact of new technologies, both professionals and organizations will have to acquire new technology skills to keep pace with the emerging job trends in 2020.
