16. Skilled manpower shortage in india.

IT firms brace to face skilled manpower shortage dec28,2005

The threat of skilled manpower shortage looming over the IT and ITeS sectors has not taken the industry by surprise even though it comes at a time when the sector is looking at ramping up of headcount.

The industry has safety catches and contingency measures in place, including hiring of expatriate talent, recruiting freshers and training them, and a closer interaction between academia and industry among others.

A recent Nasscom-McKinsey report predicted a shortfall of 500,000 knowledge workers by 2010, mainly due to lack of suitable talent.

"On a mass level there is an availability of abundant skilled workforce and this is increasing. Exposure to foreign movies and gadgets like i-pods among the young is making them proficient in handling English language, an important skill for BPO industry," Intelenet CEO Susir Kumar told Business Standard.

The company used to recruit over 70 per cent of experienced hands, with the remaining 30 per cent being freshers. The freshers would be trained to meet the company's skill levels. Intelenet is ramping up its headcount to 20,000 full-time employees from the present 5,000 by 2009 and the addition of staff is on track.

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Shortage of skilled manpower will retard growth: EFI, nov 10 2006

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‘India is suffering from a real shortage of manpower’

According to industry estimates only a quarter of all graduates are employable and about 80% of job seekers in employment exchange are with out any professional skills. India is suffering from a massive shortage of skilled manpower.

Businesses in India have started spreading their tentacles in towns, cities and semi urban areas in search of newer markets. These are seen as future markets for telecommunications, FMCG and retail sector among others. As companies expand their operations , they are not finding enough trained people to fit into different positions.

The question arises: With half of its 1.2 billion population aged under 25, how can India possibly be short of manpower? The problem lies in quality and not quantity of manpower. Virtually every industry from IT, Retail, Finance, telecommunication, manufacturing and biotechnology is struggling to find skilled workers and managers as they expand. The IT industry alone employs around 348,000 people currently. IT body Nasscom says the industry will be short of 82,000 workers by 2007. By 2009, the shortfall is expected to be around 206,000.

Such serious shortages of manpower are also reflected in the phenomenal pay rises Indian industry is giving to retain existing staff. A survey by the global human resources firm Hewitt Associates reports that Indians in white collar jobs took home 13.7 % higher overall average salary increase last year, the highest in the Asia-Pacific region. Indian companies lose nearly 15 5 of their manpower annually to other companies, according to the same survey. The attrition rates for the outsourcing industry are far worse and ranges from 20 to 40 %.

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India Inc facing skilled manpower shortage: survey july 8,2007

In the biotechnology sector alone the shortage of doctorate and post doctorate scientists is a whopping 80 percent, according to the survey done by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) based on feedback from 20 industry sectors.

Similarly, the food processing industry faces immense scarcity of refrigeration mechanics, electricians, agricultural scientists, coupled with shortage of certificate holders and people trained in short term courses.

The survey also highlighted a glaring manpower crunch in the health sector and according to FICCI, acute shortage of doctors is expected over the next few years, especially anaesthetists, radiologists, gynaecologists and surgeons (particularly neurosurgeons).

Large gaps would emerge over the next few years in areas like basic cardiac life support, advanced cardiac life support and advanced trauma life support including shortage of trained nurses.

In the banking and finance sector, the survey shows that in 2006 companies faced an acute shortage in several professional categories. The sector faces a 90 percent shortage of risk managers, IT professionals - 65 percent, treasury managers - 50 percent, credit operations professionals - 75 percent, financial analysts - 80 percent, wealth managers - 80 percent and economic and planning analysts - 80 percent.

“Skill shortages exists across many segments of the industry and economy of the country. We have in fact moved from a position where not only the technically qualified professionals in various streams are in short supply but there also exists an acute shortage of shop floor workers,” FICCI said.

The chamber has urged both the government and industry to take immediate corrective action and focus on building effective resources to address the issue.

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Manpower shortage haunts Indian construction industry ! ,10 january 2008

Just as the knowledge sector such as IT, ITeS and bio-technology, the Indian construction industry, which is set to witness massive investments in the next five years, is also facing an acute shortage of skilled workforce. The construction industry in India is facing a huge shortage of manpower, especially those with skill-sets to sustain the burgeoning growth in infrastructure and housing sectors.

The real estate boom has increased the demand for construction workers manifold and hiring workforce is becoming a major task for construction companies. Shortage of construction workers has, in fact, slowed down the growth of industry in metros and major cities across the country.

Special technically skilled manpower and project managers having all round knowledge are in short supply. There is 30 per cent shortage of specially skilled workforce. The demand for civil engineers, too, is much more than the available strength. Most of them prefer taking up jobs in the IT sector or accept lucrative assignments in the Middle East.

Civil engineering graduates don’t find these jobs lucrative because construction companies don’t pay enough and the jobs are also temporary. After a project is finished in one state the company moves to its project in another state leaving the workers behind. In most cases the workers too don’t prefer to shift unless they get good salaries and perks like in the IT companies.

According to a study many huge projects in major industrial belts are getting delayed by 12 to 18 months because of non-availability of workers. According to the study cities like Mumbai, New Delhi, Gurgaon, Chennai, Hyderabad, Bangalore and Kolkata are facing severe shortage of construction workers. It has also been pointed out that the construction sector will account for over one fourth of new jobs to be created in the next eight years.

With pending projects and thousands of vacancies staring them in the face the developers are trying all tactics to get the required workforce.

However, turnover is not the only casualty of this shortage as several construction companies have also been forced to lower their recruitment standards. The companies, which earlier had stringent qualifying standards, have now lowered the bar.

Secondly, they are no longer insisting on hiring engineering graduates only as diploma holders too are welcome. Now construction companies are also approaching educational institutions for job placements.

So while on one hand the shortage of workers is alarming, on the other hand it also translates as a bagful of opportunities as it has opened up a sector with thousands of jobs just waiting for enterprising takers.

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Manpower shortage = high salaries july 14 ,2004

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Skill Gap hurts technology boom in india 17oct,2006 nytimes

India still produces plenty of engineers, nearly 400,000 a year at last count. But their competence has become the issue.

A study commissioned by a trade group, the National Association of Software and Service Companies, or Nasscom, found only one in four engineering graduates to be employable. The rest were deficient in the required technical skills, fluency in English or ability to work in a team or deliver basic oral presentations.

The skills gap reflects the narrow availability of high-quality college education in India and the galloping pace of the country’s service-driven economy, which is growing faster than nearly all but China’s. The software and service companies provide technology services to foreign companies, many of them based in the United States. Software exports alone expanded by 33 percent in the last year.

The university systems of few countries would be able to keep up with such demand, and India is certainly having trouble. The best and most selective universities generate too few graduates, and new private colleges are producing graduates of uneven quality.

Many fear that the labor pinch may signal bottlenecks in other parts of the economy. It is already being felt in the information technology sector.

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Logistics see shortage of skilled manpower

Logistics sector in India is likely to face acute shortage of skilled manpower. The sector’s rapid evolution, both in terms of scale and scope, is creating the need for a whole new skill sets and trained manpower. However, precious little is being done to address the situation, says a KPMG white paper released in association with CII.

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