Economic Development Narrative Essay
The accelerated economic growth has compelled the employers and firms to hire a set of highly skilled and well educated workforce to keep up the pace with the dynamic developments. Employees worldwide have several reasons for their inability to take up a job like unsuitable geographic conditions, not being up to the mark with certain qualifications etc. but on the other hand, India is one such country where workforce is available in abundance but there are only limited candidates suitable to fill up the jobs and thus employer finds it difficult to find a perfect candidate. Shortage of relevant skills including hard and soft skills, being uneducated or unqualified results in less or no employability.
Moreover, unlike other countries which are facing a burden of ageing population, India has a benefitting edge with a unique 20-30 years window of majority of the population and thus has a supporting demographic dividend.
The main focus for the paper has turned to skill gap in the economy. A study by Rupam Jyoti Deka and Bhavika Batra (2016) has focused on the skill gap prevailing in the country. Indian workforce needs to acquire skills and knowledge in order to gain employability. As per the Planning Commission Reports of 2008, India has a huge skill gap compared to other countries.
Percentage of workforce receiving skill training (2008)
With the rising influence of globalization, India has immense opportunities to establish its distinctive position in the world economy. The rural workforce still lacks in skill development and good quality education for them to qualify and secure a job {Radhika Kapur, (2014)}. They need to develop skills for the purpose of obtaining skill sufficiency in resource utilization, governance, leadership, technology, management and so on.
A study by A. Mahendra (2015) suggests that education alone does not suffice. For proper execution, skills are necessary. The importance of skill is an unattended area except in few areas like Medicine, Engineering etc. that too in very few institutes. The graduates are still struggling in free and confident communication, lack of boldness to present the presentations and projects. India is composed by demographic dividend with multiple languages, cultures, religion etc. So teaching in common language is not possible, if we continue doing this, other issues are cropped up.
In 2014, the Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Damodar Das Modi announced and requested the global economies to ‘produce in India’ by launching a campaign ‘Make in India’. About 63% of Indian youth indicated a dire need to create employment in manufacturing sector, a study by Ankul Pandey and Prof. D.K. Nema (2017) indicated.
Another paper by Ankul Pandey, Prof. D.K. Nema (2017) and AnnaLee Saxenian (2002) raised the concerns about an issue of Brain Drain or Brain Circulation. Brains of Indian people are immeasurably intellectual and has proved the worth and stand of India at various Global Levels including NASA, or holding a well reputed and respected positions in global firms including Google, Microsoft, Pepsi co. to name a few.
But due to lack of job opportunities, the Indian talent is draining out to other countries which are willing to offer better positions with higher opportunities and perks. The emigration of highly skilled personnel to other countries represents a huge economic loss and brain drain. The main causes for this drain to happen be obviously lack of growing opportunities and availability of very few seats for huge number of job applicants.
Also, higher salaries and perks attract huge number of job seekers improving their standards of living. AnnaLee Saxenian (2002) introduced a new concept of ‘Brain Circulation’. Brain circulation widely means returning of a personnel back to his own country after learning and experiencing the advancements in education, skill or work and contributing his part in the growth and development of the domestic economy instead of permanently settling down in the foreign country.
Brain circulations would definitely prove a game changer if it is honestly practiced and this would be possible only if India would improve its skill development and increase the job opportunities and offer more perks and employee benefits.
As per the study by Aya Okada (2012), the difficulties faced by youth for seeking jobs are:
- Intense globalization has led to intense competition among firms which is leading to improvement in their efficiency forcing them to hire few but highly skilled personnel.
- Global economy has led firms to engage in massive restructuring resulting in fewer job openings.
- Rapid technological advancements require workers to have moral complex and cognitive skills than ever. The economy now is more of ‘knowledge based’.
- Due to increase in migration of labour, the youth is exposed to increased intense competition even from workers globally who offer more knowledge, skills and competencies.
To improve the conditions of employability and to produce more efficient labour, the government has launched several campaigns and movements. There is a measurable skill gap between what industries demand and the acquired skills of the youth. Youth’s access to vocational training is limited because the vocational education and training systems across the nation is not large enough to be able to accommodate many schools and graduates.
However, the government has formulated National Skills Development Policy, Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana, and Skill India; set up a new institutional framework to coordinate the skill development efforts and National Vocational Education Qualification Framework.
