Skilling and employability: understanding challenges in India with special reference to West Bengal
- 2018
- p.143-158.
- Jun
Demand and supply mismatch is central to the issue of skills and employability. If levels of education are considered as proxy for skills, literacy and numeracy, then higher share of those with lower levels of education?primary to secondary level (44% to 52%)?has not joined the labour force compared to those with higher education levels. The paradox is that unemployment levels are the highest for engineering, technology and management and lower for law, medical and accounts graduates. High dropout rates in schools contribute to lower levels of skills in the workforce. There is dominance of self-employed and casual labour over wage labour. Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Manipur and Uttarakhand have both high gross enrolment ratio and high workforce participation. Studies show that only 40 per cent are employable based on attributes of employability, such as domain knowledge, communication skills, numerical and logical attributes and vertical thinking. In West Bengal, there is excess supply of workforce in all categories?skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled. Although the share of trained workforce in the state is higher than the national average, the absorption rate of this workforce is lower than the national average. Although national- and state-level skill policies have been announced, there is poor mapping of skill gaps which is not in keeping with the local demand. Skill-building policies and strategies need to be made more demand-driven and responsive to the needs of the industry, whose participation in the entire skill-building process will have to be proactive than has been the case at present. - Reproduced.
Skill development - India - West Bengal Employment - India - West Bengal Employment