By the year 2020, India is poised to be the world’s youngest country, according to ‘State of the Urban Youth, India 2012’ a report published by IRIS Knowledge Foundation in collaboration with United Nations. This means that in the next 3 years, the average age of India’s citizens will be 29 and 64 percent of the country’s population will be in the working age group. This will once again put the spotlight on India’s famous ‘demographic dividend’.
For years now, this dividend has been India’s calling card. The current government’s ‘Make In India’ initiative too aims to reap this. But is enough being done to stop this dividend from turning into a disaster? Are sufficient jobs being created? Well, a closer look at India’s employment landscape will reveal that the picture is not all that rosy, given that job creation continues to remain a challenge.
Where are the jobs?
A report by the United Nations Development Programme that came out last year stated that over the next 35 years, India is likely to witness acute shortage of jobs. It went on to say that between 1991 and 2013, while the ‘working age’ population grew by 300 million, only 140 million actually found jobs.
If employment generation is a challenge, then so is skill development. The findings of an Ernst & Young – FICCI report reveal a shocking disparity between India’s academic institutions and real-world industry requirements. The report says that of the 0.4 million engineering students that the country produces every year, a meagre 20 percent are job-ready. Such statistics only add to the scepticism surrounding job creation in India and cast a shadow on the government’s plans of making India a manufacturing hub.
We no doubt add millions of youth to the workforce year on year, but some pertinent questions still beg answers – Are these millions employable? Do they have the relevant skill sets? Are there enough jobs for them? Are they secure in their jobs? It Is only when we find answers to these will we be able to find a solution to India’s impending unemployment crisis.
Future of jobs in India
India’s youth has immense potential and what better way to help the country overcome its job creation challenges than to get all these young minds on a single platform. This is exactly why Axis Bank, one of India’s largest private sector banks, launched ‘Future of jobs in India’ in February this year. The aim of this initiative was to motivate the youth to come up with innovative ideas that will help generate jobs in India.
The competition was open to all Indian nationals in the age group of 18 to 30. There were 10,000 plus registrations, out of which only 180 teams were shortlisted basis the idea they had submitted and their quiz score. Each team comprised of 2 members. Further down, the competition narrowed down to 50 teams selected by 10 juries comprising members of the senior management. To make it to the top 50, each idea had to go through at least 2 juries to make the cut.
On 8 April, the day of the grand finale, these 50 teams fought it out to impress the jury members that had among them senior dignitaries. The final 5 presented their ideas to the grand jury comprising Shikha Sharma, MD and CEO, Axis Bank, Amitabh Kant, CEO of Niti Aayog, Rajan Anandan, VP and MD, Google (Southeast Asia and India) and Gautam Kumra, MD, McKinsey India.
And the winner is....
After weeks and weeks of ideation, brainstorms and pitches, the team that impressed one and all with their idea was Team MiColor. Arjun Singh Bajwa and Vaishali Kulkarni, who pitched the idea of finding microbial alternatives to hazardous chemical fabric dyes, walked away with a prize money of Rs 25,00,000.
The first-runner up was Team Be Rozgaar. Their idea is to target the vast unstructured labour market and help them find formal employment.
Kudos to Axis Bank for helming an initiative such as this that will go a long way in addressing India’s job creation challenges. As for these winners, their journey has just begun and we can’t wait to see where they go from here. After all, it is these ideas of today that will create the jobs of tomorrow.
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