Surpassing the hiccups faced last year, Indian job market is now moving towards growth with a positive hiring intent and more availability of employable talent. While the employability score has gone up from 40.44% in 2016-17 to 45.60% in 2017-18 as per the Wheebox Employability Skill Test, the Hiring Intent for the year 2018 has come out to be confident with an increase of 10-15% as compared to last year, as per the India Skills Report 2018. While 49% respondents have shown a positive hiring intent, there is a 25% population of respondents who are neutral. In fact, 26% of them have shown a negative hiring intent as well. Although the concern of skill gap has also not completely gone away with 41% still claiming that only some job seekers meet the required skill, the overall sentiment is positive and aligns well with the availability of talent and overall employability going up.
Another interesting observation is that out of the total 12 sectors; seven are such where 50% respondents have shown positive hiring intent. These include Banking and Financial Services, BPO, Insurance, others and diversified, Retail, Travel and Hospitality and IT. While out of the total population, private companies comprised of 67% of survey population and have shared a positive outlook for hiring, MNCs seem to be in a wait and watch mode with a more neutral response on hiring.
Besides the hiring outlook, the findings of the survey also make revelations about the educational qualifications, work experience, and desired skill sets in demand.
Hiring intent based on educational qualification
- Graduation courses and engineering graduation or equivalent courses are high in demand as both put together constitute 45% of total hiring requirements. Further data drill down suggests that Insurance, Manufacturing, Pharma, and Healthcare sectors have a high demand for graduates and engineers are demanded by IT, core sectors, Engineering and auto sectors.
- Management postgraduate contributes to 19% of total requirements. Consumer goods, Manufacturing and others and the diversified sector has a high demand for MBA pass outs.
- MBA is followed by postgraduate or equivalent making 14% of the total requirement and majorly includes MSc. MCA, M.Com, M.Tech, and MA. BPOs and manufacturing sectors have a high demand for this talent pool, and MCA is mainly preferred by IT sectors.
- ITI and Polytechnic share a smaller percentage among other courses in demand but are preferred by Manufacturing, Engineering, and Automotive as compared to others.
Hiring intent based on work experience
Interestingly, small organizations are looking to hire more experienced candidates while large and conglomerate category organizations are looking to recruit junior to middle-level positions. Survey reveals that candidates with 1-5 years of experience are preferred over freshers. And these freshers are majorly preferred in sectors where numbers of floor levels roles are very high like BPO, KPO, ITES, Manufacturing, and Automotive. Software, Hardware and IT favors middle-level employees. 1-5 years’ experience band employees are in demand for MNCs as compared to others. The demand of middle to senior is least in Public Sector as they prefer internal talent over lateral hiring for these levels.
Skills Sets and Capabilities in Demand
While 69% respondents agreed that automation is impacting their industries, the remaining 31% declined to experience an impact of it in their industry. However, as most of the respondents acknowledged the implications of automation the influence of it can be observed in the demand of the skills for the future. The results have made intriguing revelations with regards to the skill sets which respondents plan to hire in the future. The workforce should note these skills in demand to keep with the pace of hiring and be more job ready. The critical areas chosen are:
- Data analytics: 24%
- Research and Development: 20%
- Artificial Intelligence: 15%
- Concept Design (Hardware and Software): 15%
- Robotics: 9%
- Others( Cognitive technologies, VR, Augmented Intelligence): 17%
Besides this the three capabilities the employers would want in the future of workforce and would be their top priorities while making the hiring decision is domain understanding, adaptability, and positive attitude.
The positive sentiment highlighted by India Skills Report 2018 on both demand and availability side of skills will be fundamental in achieving India’s vision of becoming world’s ‘skill capital.’ And this is further aligned with a possible reduction in the skill gap as the survey shows 42% respondents saying that most job seekers possess the required skills and match their requirements.
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This article is part of PeopleStrong & PeopleMatters Learning Initiative