By Debanjan Dutta, Sr. Vice President and Global Delivery Head – NEC Corporation India
Over the past few decades, India has emerged as a massive catchment point for youth effervescence. According to the International Labour Organization, India’s workforce is projected to grow beyond 8 million by 2030, most of which would constitute young minds. This promising scenario, popularly known as the ‘demographic dividend,’ is driving world leaders, entrepreneurs, and business magnets to bank on the Indian human capital, more so in the age of the hybrid workplace model.
The sheer brilliance, diverse skill sets, and problem-solving capabilities of the Indian diaspora are usually preferred to drive business transformation across the globe. It is no secret that some of the top-of-the-line information technology (IT) companies in the Silicon Valley (US) have Indians in leadership positions who have proven their tech-enriched mettle time and again with their advanced technology business methodologies.
India’s competitive talent, geographic strategic arsenal, and technological potential propels it to wield its influence beyond Asia. Recognizing India as a massive hub for digital transformation, The Government of India (GoI) is bolstering the country’s IT talent pool with initiatives like ‘Make in India’ that aim to leverage the country’s IT competitiveness on the world stage. Undoubtedly, India’s race toward technological dominance is inextricably intertwined with evolving technology trends and the scope of technological advantage that IT companies can augment with a long-term focus on resources and global reach.
Read on to know some ways India can leverage to succeed as a global hub of tech-based human resource capital:
1. Creating a tech-talent pool: Quality technical education is the foundation for building spin-off technologies and applications that India can outsource to the world for rapid adoption. While newer trends continue to shape the technology landscape across the globe, India’s readiness to embrace newer technologies that are uniform or predictable depends on drives like new modes of upskilling, on-the-job models, and changing workplace dynamics.
According to an enterprise survey by World Economic Forum (WEF), 76% of the country’s young population in these companies recognize the significance of disruptive technological innovations and therefore display a keen interest in enrolling in a skill development program that would strengthen their employment prospects. Thus, building a national pool of skill sets among the Indian youth would serve as the starting point for India’s road to becoming a global talent hub.
2. Opening up fresh employment avenues: With the increased pace of digitization, a new set of roles have emerged in the corporate rung, such as Data Scientist, Insights specialist, Chief Data Officer, Chief Information officer, etc. Hence, the Indian IT sector estimates a surge in tech-induced employment avenues for the country’s young talent. This requires a close collaboration of public and private sectors to tap into the pulse of the youth and increase their hiring stats for creating such an expansive database of Indian tech talent.
A mechanism to adapt the skillsets of the existing workforce and introduce skilling initiatives for new entrants to the labor force can help navigate the changes in job types, job roles and the evolving customer requirements.
3. Promotion of gig economy: India’s demographic dividend, uptick in location agnostic job roles, and rapid acceleration of the digital avalanche enable the country to carve out a more independent role as a technology leader.
The sudden surge in technology-rich, innovative solutions across different industries has led fast learners to scale up and become visible in the broader tech market. Currently, the Indian employment structure comprises a significant number of freelancers, temporary and/or contractual young workers. According to Niti Aayog, the gig working talent pool is estimated to widen to a whopping 23.5 million by 2030. Also, gig hires, which stood at 15% in 2020, are predicted to surge to 70% by 2025. Therefore, for reasons one too many, promoting the golden power of building a gig economy would go a long way to building a hub of the Indian tech talent workforce.
4. Bridging the education gap: India is a vast amalgam of varied socio-economic groups; a massive gap exists in education which has a direct bearing on the employability quotient, especially in rural areas. Owing to this, the skill set of the younger strata of the population within rural India remains largely untapped, which could potentially bolster the country’s tech talent cohort by leaps and bounds on the global map. More than 60% of Indian youth are not enrolled in formal education or employment. Therefore, there is a need to expand talent sourcing boundaries to delve deeper into the pulse of the rural youth, take digitization to rural India, and build a productivity-driven technology skill set across the country.
5. Increasing the investment in technology tools: India is setting its sights on becoming an AI powerhouse on a par with other leading global economies. To accelerate the pace, government and private companies should build Centres of Excellence (CoEs) that are focused on offering a platform for training and building skill sets fostering digital revolution, such as the Internet of Things (IoT), big data analysis, Web 3.0, etc. Additional investments by enterprises in advanced technology tools would go a long way in face-lifting the Indian tech talent ecosystem.