The Wheebox India Skills Report 2023, in collaboration with CII, Taggd, AICTE, AIU, Sunstone, Pearson, AWS and Economic Times, examines the demand and supply for talent and hiring intent of jobs. The findings of the report suggest that in contrast with last year’s employability figures of 46.2%, 50.3% of young people were found to be highly employable overall, according to ISR 2023, which is a significant improvement. The percentage of employable women workforce has increased to 52.8%, compared to 47.2% for men. The report also points out that 89% of graduates were actively seeking for internship opportunities. The survey indicates that candidates from Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and Delhi had the highest employability. Amongst B.Tech, MBA and B.Com were found to be the most employable talent from amongst various domains.
Mumbai, Lucknow & Mangalore were the cities with the most employable talent and the most preferred cities for work by graduates were Bangalore, Chennai and Delhi/NCR.
Speaking on this occasion, Nirmal Singh, Chief Convenor of India Skills Report, Founder & CEO, Wheebox said, “As we celebrate India at 75, it is imperative now that we harness the demographic dividend. The world is rapidly ageing, but India is still young. In the next few decades, India will be a talent powerhouse and one of the largest contributors to the global workforce.”
He added, “If India’s demographic dividend is productively leveraged, growth prospects will brighten, helping it to leapfrog its GDP from the current $3 trillion+ to double by 2030. Globally, of the total workforce in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM), women have only 28% representation, a sorry state of affairs indeed.”
If the country needs to realize true talent potential, the focus should be training and skilling more women in technology by promoting skilling, entrepreneurship, and market linkage support to women building technology start-ups and tech-driven businesses. I believe that if India focuses on two key metrics: more female participation in STEM and more female workforce participation, India will double its economy in half the time it would take otherwise to do so”.
“India is set out on a path of growth and its fast moving private industry has been one of the defining factors. There is a renewed need and focus on upskilling fresh talent to meet and adapt with the demands of the ever evolving industry. At Sunstone, we are involved in bridging the widening gap between the industry and academia and trying to reduce the gap between acquired knowledge and required knowledge. India Skill Report 2023 highlights the specifics of skill gaps pertaining to different sectors, geographies and industry. Sunstone -as its education partner is committed to the vision of skilling India and reaching out to the last mile aspirant via our offering” said Piyush Nangru, Co Founder and COO Sunstone.
The report points out that India will be hiring most in the Automotive, Engineering and Internet Business. Additionally, companies across India show a hiring intent of 36.08% for the demand forecast of 2023. The report also pointed out that the courses most in demand in 2023 will be B.Com and MBA with the most employable talent at 60.62% and 60.1% respectively. BE/B.Tech domain candidates are the third most employable, in the domain-wise employability category, with employability being 57.44%. According to the study, the demand for skilled labour is being driven by the BFSI, pharmaceutical, e-commerce, and IT/ITES sectors. Freshmen hiring in these fields is projected to increase by 20% in 2023 compared to 2022
Leverage the highly employable women resources.
India’s female participation in the workforce currently stands at 33% as compared to 67% participation for their male counterparts. Interestingly the employability for female talent is around 5.6% more than that of men. If India aspires to become a global leader in providing skilled talent, then it is recommended that more policy-level changes are needed to increase workforce participation both in the private sector as well as the government sector.
Rajasthan was reported to have the greatest percentage of employable females who were prepared for the workforce (53.56%) while Uttar Pradesh came in second with 46.51% of employable women.
Given the significant shift in gender-based employability over time—more women have regularly been found to be highly employable than men over the past few years—the positive consequences of cultural and economic developments are encouraging
The India Skills Report is a synthesis of two independent and complementary studies: the Wheebox National Employability Test, which examined young employability, and the India Hiring Intent Survey – Early Career Edition 2023, a primary research survey done for 150+ corporates across 15 industries. The Wheebox National Employability Test, or WNET, examined students’ employability by assessing their work readiness for India’s changing employment market.
