Wheebox, a global skill assessment company, has recently released a report which revealed that overall 46.2% of the Indian youth were found to be highly employable against last year’s employability of 45.97%.
India Skills Report 2022 by Wheebox, in partnership with CII, AICTE, AIU, Taggd, Sunstone Eduversity, and UNDP, is a report on talent demand and supply. According to the report, women’s employable pool is steadily increasing with 51.44%, while 45.97% of males were found to be highly employable. Another trend that has picked up, according to the report, is that 88.6% of graduates are seeking internship opportunities.
The survey found out that candidates from Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, and Kerala had the highest employability as compared to last year which was Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, and Karnataka. Among these, B.Tech and MBA graduates were found to be the most employable talent from the various domains. The survey also found that Pune, Lucknow, and Trivandrum were the cities with the most employable talent, and the most preferred cities for work by graduates were Bengaluru, Kochi, and Chennai.
Speaking about the report, Nirmal Singh, Founder & CEO, Wheebox, said,
“The pandemic has shown us that remote learning and remote work are going to become the new normal for many sectors across IT, business consultancy, financial services, and very specifically one industry-leading the game, the education industry.
We have observed in the last few years that students who ranked higher on critical thinking and numerical ability in the National Employability Test grew faster in profiles such as Sr. Analyst and Big Data Engineering roles. So, there exists a direct correlation to the fact that employability skills are the key for larger success for students’ jobs.”
According to the report, the demand for qualified and skilled professionals will be driven by sectors including IT/ITES, Pharmaceutical, E-Commerce, and BFSI. The hiring in these sectors is expected to increase by 20% for freshers in 2022 compared to 2021. Technology as a skillset will continue to be in demand across industries, the report added.
India will be hiring most in the Internet Business, Software, Hardware and IT, Pharma, and BFSI sectors. The study revealed that there has been a significant change since last year, with a positive hiring intent of 35.96% for the demand forecast of 2022.
The report also pointed out the courses most in-demand in 2022 will be B.Tech and MBA with the most employable talent at 55.15% and 55.09% respectively. IT, CSE, ECE are the most employable engineering domains.
Leveraging the highly employable women resources
Compared to the 36% of women’s participation in the workforce last year, this year has witnessed similar participation with 32.8% across diverse industry verticals. Though 67.2% of men make up the larger portion of employed professionals, women’s participation in the workforce is being encouraged by more companies with the intent to hire more females, the report said.
Telangana was found to have the highest job-ready females at 39.42%, followed by Karnataka with 35.44%. Most female participation was found in the internet business sector with 54.5%. The highest number of male workers is recorded in the retail sector with 95%, followed by the manufacturing sector with 88%, and the automotive industry with 80%. Female workers in the IT & Tech businesses were projected at 52.67%, followed by the pharmaceutical sector with 35%, and BFSI with 30%. With the inclusion of remote work opportunities and hybrid models, a more distributed workforce is expected in many industries.
The India Skills Report is a combination of an assessment of 3 lakh candidates across India who appeared for the Wheebox National Employability Test (WNET) and 150 corporates across 15+ industries who participated in the India Hiring Intent Survey- Early Career Edition. The Wheebox National Employability Test survey sheds light on the employability of the youth of India. Some of the key dimensions assessed during the survey were business communication, critical thinking, and numerical reasoning.
