Small-town Indians more employable than those from the metros

The study forecasts an overall increase of 14.5 per cent in the hiring intent in 2016, as well.

According to the India Skills Report 2016, over 50 per cent of the workforce from Tier II & III cities are employable vis-à-vis 30 per cent in the Tier I cities.

However, there has been an overall increase in the employability score, which has risen to 38.12 per cent from 37.22 per cent in 2015. The figure for 2014 was only 33.95 per cent.

In terms of age group, the employability factor (those who scored more than 60 per cent) was highest in the 18–21 group with 37 per cent, followed by the 22–25 group with 31.59 per cent and the 26–29 group, with employability of 21.88 per cent.

The study forecasts an overall increase of 14.5 per cent in the hiring intent in 2016. The sectors which will see maximum hiring are retail, e-commerce, BFSI, pharma, telecom, and manufacturing with an increase of over 20 per cent in the hiring numbers followed by BPO/KPO/ITES and core sectors, with an increase of over 10 per cent. However, FMCG, hospitality, and software and IT expect the hiring numbers to remain the same compared to last year.

The study revealed that the BFSI sector will increase the hiring of management and bachelor’s degree holders and reduce ITI and diploma candidates. However, the consumer durable and hospitality sectors are expected to hire more of vocational candidates. The hospitality sector also plans to reduce the intake of diploma graduates in the overall hiring mix. Similarly, the core sectors will see a fall in the hiring of graduates while hiring of engineers will go up significantly.

In terms of the employable pool, the top states include Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, West Bengal, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, and Haryana. Compared to last year’s list of the top 10 states, the new entrants include – Jharkhand, Himachal Pradesh and Haryana. The states which lost their slot in the top 10 list are — Orissa, Kerala and Pondicherry.

Similarly, in terms of hiring trends, the maximum hiring activity can be seen in Maharashtra, Karnataka, Delhi, Tamil Nadu, Punjab, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, and Haryana respectively.

Although a younger workforce—age 30 or below—is preferred by 80 per cent of employers, there is an increasing trend of hiring those over 30 years of age. This number has increased to over 23 per cent in this year’s survey.

The report also tried to identify the preferred sourcing channels of the employers. Internal referrals came across as the most preferred sourcing channel, followed by job portals. The use of social media as a sourcing channel is increasing with each passing year, with about 14.5 per cent citing it as the preferred network. There is also a small percentage, which is adopting mobile and video recruiting. In totality, the digital channel forms more than 1/4th of the preferred sourcing channels.

The India Skills Report 2016 is a joint initiative by Wheebox, PeopleStrong, Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), LinkedIn and Association of Indian Universities (AIU). The report captures insights from the largest employability test that was spread out to 3000 educational campuses, assessing five lakh students across India. It also obtained inputs from the country’s hiring intent survey that reached out to over 150 employers across 12 major sectors.