According to India Skills Report 2020, 56% of employers are likely to increase hiring, although net hiring outlook declined from previous year.

The report says that 56% of employers are likely to increase hiring, although net hiring outlook declined from previous year. Despite the gloomy outlook that is impacting Indian economy and the hiring plans of organizations in the last three quarters, Hiring will look up in 2020, according to India Skills Report 2020. While there are sectors where a muted growth would be experienced, Banking, Financial Services, Insurance and E-commerce business companies have shared a positive hiring intent for the coming year. Powered by wheebox, A Global Talent Assessment Company, India Skills Report is a joint initiative with taggd by peoplestrong, Confederation of Indian Industries, in collaboration with UNDP, AICTE and AIU. india skills report 2020 aims to provide an overview of the supply of talent and the demand from industry and brings together the readiness of our present talent pool for new-age jobs or job types and the skills that employers are today seeking in prospective employees.

The report is a culmination of insights gathered from wheebox National Employability Test (WNET) a nation-wide assessment that reached over 300 thousand graduates from 3500 institutions across 28 states and 9 Union Territories of India and the India Hiring Intent Survey (IHIS), primary survey of over 150+ enterprises across 9 major industries conducted by Taggd (PeopleStrong’s Recruitment Business).

On the talent demand side, IHIS this year revealed that almost 56% of employers have a positive outlook on hiring, which is slightly lower than last year when this number was 64%. Candidates with 1-5 years of experience continue to remain in maximum demand (over 40%) while freshers make up for only 15% of the overall talent demand. Basis the educational qualifications in demand, engineers have been expected to be hired the most (30%), closely followed by general graduates (BA/B.com/BSc.). Whereas Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Maharashtra are the states preferred the most by employers for hiring talent. Speaking on the occasion, Devashish Sharma, Chief Business Officer, taggd and Founding Member, Group Chief People Officer – peoplestrong said, “In an economic environment where most business are taking a cautious approach towards business plans in the coming year, it is amazing to see some green-shoots. And we are hopeful that this would further improve if the necessary reforms are launched in time. In this year’s report, in addition to quantitative analysis we have also collated qualitative inputs from the demand side from our decoding jobs 2019 – the think tank series and are hopeful that our suggestions would help the academia and the government to take necessary steps and bridge the talent supply and demand gap.”

As per the WNET on the talent supply side, of all the students passing out this year from various streams, more than 46% are employable. While MBA graduates have the highest level of employability amongst all, followed by specialist courses like B. Pharma and B. Com, courses like BA, polytechnic are also showing movement in the positive direction. Most of these employable graduates are found in the states of Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh. The report also commented on the role women need to play in order to make US $5 Trillion economy a reality and shared that though female employability this year has increased marginally to 47% from 46% last year, the gender parity as the hiring intent for 2020 remains a concern. The report reflects a likely hiring ratio of 71:29 for Male to Female candidates in 2020, with the widest disproportions expected to be seen in the Auto sector. Nirmal Singh, Co-Founder and CEO, Wheebox shared, “India’s talent supply landscape is very complex yet interesting. With the kind of change organisations are experiencing, lot of work needs to be done on the supply side to keep up with the pace. This is visible in the employability levels on graduates, which though improving is yet to cross the 50% mark.” This article was published on People Matters