21% of India’s workforce to face job threat by 2022

Training and reskilling are immediately required to fulfill the demands of the changing work environment.

Technological disruption and innovation have changed the way businesses operate today. Their functioning is changing rapidly with automation, artificial intelligence, machine learning and robotics. While these disruptions are helping improve the revenue and cut costs for the businesses, their employees are facing challenges. Many companies have reduced their total employee count, replacing them with automation and robotics. Also, the employees seem to lack the relevant skills required to excel at the workplace, which is resulting in their termination.

According to a FICCI report on future job projection in India, 21 per cent of the current workforce employed in India is going to face job threats by the year 2022, because of the lack of relevant job skills.

As per the report, by the end of year 2022, nine percent of the workforce will be working in fields that do not exist currently, 37 per cent will be employed in sectors with radically changed skill sets and 54 per cent will fall under the unchanged job category.

The report says employees in the IT sector have maximum risk of losing their job by 2022. About 20 to 35 per cent of the employees in the IT sector will face maximum threats in their job. The new jobs in this sector will be that of VFX artists, wireless network specialists, data scientists, data architect, android developer and other similar jobs.

Jobs in the textile, automobile and retail sectors will also change fast due to automation and other technological disruptions. The demand for e-textile specialists will go up in the textile sector, while in the automobile sector there will be a demand for 3D printing technicians and vehicle cyber-security experts.

The concept of Gig Economy is growing very fast in India. Around 24 per cent of the workforce in India is engaged in online jobs. Growing use of the Internet and other technologies is creating many job opportunities in this space.

The technology aggregator model, the ‘Uber Model’, is the second big area that is generating employment opportunities.

The job scenario in India is changing because of the demographic changes, globalisation and adoption of advanced technology by businesses.

The need of the hour is to create a workforce, which possesses the relevant skills and required technical knowledge to excel at work. The Government and businesses need to introduce programmes to train and re-skill the workforce.

The Ministry of Human Resource and Development has already introduced several programmes to skill and train the workforce in India. The country needs skill-based education to produce a job-ready workforce.