Why in news?

India Skill report 2019 states that the employability in the country is at a new high of 47%.

Who prepared the India Skills Report 2019?

• India Skills Report is a joint initiative of Wheebox, a Global Talent Assessment Company, PeopleStrong, a leading HR Tech Company and Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).
• IT is supported and backed by renowned partners like United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) and Association of Indian Universities (AIU).

What does the term Employability means?

• Employability refers to a person's capability for gaining and maintaining employment.
• In simple words employability means the state or quality of being employed.
• For individuals, employability depends on the knowledge, skills and abilities they possess, the way they present those assets to employers, and the context within which they seek work.
• It is an ongoing developmental process that benefits from active reflection.

What are the key takeaways?

• Employability continues to rise thus reaching a new high of 47% this year.
• Andhra Pradesh tops the state with highest in employability followed by Rajasthan and Haryana.
• Engineers continue to be the most employable whereas MBA courses lose its shine.
• India needs to go a long way and entire ecosystem should focus on bridging the employability gaps.
• Enhance the talent pool by taking measures from school level to professional level focusing on learning.
• There has been increasing presence of employable talent is in tier 2 and tier 3 cities thus not limiting to metro cities.
• This trend is visible despite of lack of big institutions such as IITs/IIMs or any other renowned institutes in tier 2 and 3 cities.
• The key job areas which the companies would be hiring the most in future are:

1. Artificial Intelligence
2. Design
3. Analytics
4. Research and Development.

• This is a common thread across industries - Hospitality, travel, Software, mobile companies are looking for seamless
• Almost 40-50% of existing jobs which are transaction heavy would get automated.
• The key sectors are IT, financial services, manufacturing, transportation, packaging, and shipping, etc.

Is there a gender gap in terms of employability?

• Female employability increased this year as compared to last year.
• It has increased from 38% last year to 46% in current year.
• Male employability score has grown from 47% last year to 48% in current year.
• Though there is a positive growth with respect to the female employability, the gap between the male and female employability still persists.

Source: The Business Line, Business Standard