The need for upskilling or reskilling presents a huge challenge not only to individuals but to organizations, economies, and societies at large.

A report by McKinsey Global Institute published in February 2021, titled “The future of work after Covid-19” made some very crucial observations. According to the report, around 100 million people will need to find new occupations by 2030 across the eight focus countries covered in McKinsey’s study (China, France, Germany, India, Japan, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States accounting for almost half the global population and more than 60% of the global GDP). For India alone, this number will be close to 18 million.

Jobs involving relatively higher physical proximity with customers (e.g., medical care and personal care) are likely to go through more significant changes after the pandemic with faster and higher adoption of automation, digitization, and Artificial Intelligence (AI). As a consequence, a large chunk of people in low-income jobs would be displaced from their current positions — they will need to upskill or reskill themselves to remain employed or find new employment.

This looming projection of obsolescence or redundancy of jobs couldn’t have possibly come at a worse time. Millions of jobs were lost since the onset of the pandemic in 2020 causing the rate of unemployment in India and also in developed economies to scale perilously high levels.

Quite a few other surveys also underlined a serious apprehension that many of the existing jobs might become extinct by the end of this decade with increased application of digitization, automation, and pervasive application of AI/ML. We are also likely to witness the emergence of new roles in organizations or remarkable changes in the skill requirement of existing roles.

Work from home (WFH) and hybrid work models, turned into mainstream modes by the pandemic, are likely to stay even when ‘normalcy’ returns. In this emerging scenario, we need wide-ranging skill development programmes for employability in the future.

The need for upskilling or reskilling presents a huge challenge not only to individuals but to organizations, economies, and societies at large. Even before the pandemic struck, multiple reports from top industrial forums had pointed out the lack of “job readiness” among the young workforce in India. What industries and employers look for is a perfect balance of technical/vocational skills and soft skills in the job-seekers, often referred to as 21st-century skills.

In other words, candidates need to develop the right mix of aptitude and attitude for a fulfilling and high-growth career. Human Resource professionals often refer to them as the right competencies. In the post-pandemic economy, we will need an organized drive in upskilling for developing and maintaining those competencies.

A major part of the skill development programmes has already shifted to the digital space. But digital upskilling, which witnessed a massive surge since last year thanks to multiple e-learning or edtech platforms, can hardly be a perfect answer for everyone. This is particularly true for displaced workers in low-income jobs. We have primarily two facets to this problem.

First, digital upskilling may not adequately address many of the skill gaps, such as in the domain of communication, social intelligence, emotional intelligence, critical thinking, complex problem solving, negotiation, teamwork, leadership qualities, etc.

Second, it is indeed true that there are accessibility and affordability issues for a significant section of the employment seekers. The opportunities of digital upskilling are mostly limited to people who are already skilled in a domain. So, we need to think of more comprehensive measures for a more effective, inclusive solution on upskilling.

It would be unrealistic to expect individuals to be entirely responsible for their upskilling requirements. Already, a large part of the workforce perceives being left out of training opportunities because of several reasons. This exclusion from opportunities makes it extremely difficult for a large section of the youth from underprivileged sections of society, particularly from tier-2 and tier-3 towns to enter sectors like e-commerce, customer service, hospitality, retail, marketing, and sales.

For the overall development of the economy, policymakers need to intervene and offset the digital divide. The formation of organizations like National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) is a positive step in the right direction. Apart from the initiatives by the central and state governments, we need employer organizations, private companies in the field of training and education, universities/colleges to work collaboratively to address the overall skill gap and develop a future-ready workforce.

The potential is huge. World Economic Forum predicted that upskilling human resources can boost global GDP by $6.5 trillion by 2030 and by $570 billion in India alone. India's economic output would be the third after China and the US, as per these predictions.

As we are trying to survive this extremely difficult period and prepare for the next stage, we will need to employ all possible resources and channels for preparing the workforce of the future. The long and challenging journey towards recovery and rebuilding of the economy must include extensive upskilling as a fundamental component of the larger plan.

-Prof. Diganta Chakrabarti, Associate Professor - Human Resource

(* The views expressed Personal)