Hiring Intent Revives in 2018 and Employability in Higher Education Increases from 33% to 45% in 5 Years - India Skills Report 2018

A joint initiative of Wheebox, a Global Talent Assessment Company, PeopleStrong, a leading HR Tech Company and Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) was launched by Principal Adviser and Of NitiAayog along with secretaries of Dept. of Industrial Policy, Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (MSME), Ministry of Labour and Employment(MoLE), Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD), Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE), Chairman-AICTE and Founder & CEO, of Wheebox in Delhi today.

India Skills Report 2018 Release today in Delhi

The comprehensive talent demand and supply report is backed by renowned partners like Pearson, United Nations Development Programme, AICTE, AIU and various state governments, the fifth edition of India Skills Report, captures insights and trends from the largest employability test that was spread out to 5200 Universities and Professional Institutions in India. The test reached out to more than 5 lakh students across 29 states and 7 Union Territories on the talent supply side, along with India hiring intent - a primary research survey on the talent demand side that reached out to over 120+ employers across 12 major industry verticals for talent demand.

Finding of Wheebox states that employability amongst the fresh talent has increased significantly in the past 5 years. While in 2014, the percentage of employable population was a paltry 33%, it has achieved a 5.6% increase to rest at a respectable 45.60% this year. While this might not be the most positive news today, but the change that has happened over years looks tremendous. The key domains where the increase in employability has been very significant is Engineering, Pharma, MCA and other focused professional courses. It has been found by Wheebox, that focused vocational courses are creating more job ready candidates than generic courses. Also the courses where practical experience and internships, have been included in the formal course content are faring better. Another important aspect that has emerged from the supply side, came in the form of a reduction in employability amongst MBA courses. There is no such visible evidence It seems that with exponential increase in the number of MBA colleges the quality of talent is seen to be declining, which needs government attention.

From the demand side there is a positive indication as companies show a revival in their hiring intent. As per the India Hiring Intent survey,organisations across sectors expect 10-15% increase in hiring intent from last year to this year. While Retail, Banking, Financial Services andInsurance sectors are anticipating  an increase in the pace of hiring. Sectors like ITES, Software, Hardware and IT also foresee a moderate change in hiring numbers.

This year the Wheebox report has laid special focus on future jobs and the impact of automation to understand how they see jobs evolving in response to technology and innovation. The results are astounding: 69% of the respondents clearly foresee the impact of automation. Adding to this, 24% employers indicate Analytics and 15% foresee Artificial Intelligence as the emerging jobs.

Another interesting insight from the Wheebox report is that close to 80% of candidates assessed are keen to explore internship opportunities and they believe that internship will help them in being employable, whereas 85% of the candidates feel that they are not fully equipped with information or guidance to take a conscious, thought-out career decision.

Mr. Nirmal Singh, Founder and CEO of Wheebox, said, "India Skills Report findings this year has seen an improvement in employability which is a good sign for the economy. The Govt. efforts towards skill development specially in higher and vocational training institutions are paving the way for quality hiring. Moreover the efforts from the government & institutions are showing a positive trend." He further added, "new career opportunity like AI, Robotics and data analytics are indicating  an upward trend for these sectors."

Mr. Pankaj Bansal, Co-founder and CEO of PeopleStrong, said, “We as a country are undergoing a phase of upward transition as we embrace the impact of digitization and automation in our lives. A lot of effort is needed` both at the talent supply side and the demand side to ensure we complete this phase with flying colors. What is reassuring is that our analytics show we are definitely on the right track.“

About PeopleStrong

PeopleStrong is India’s leading human resource (HR) solutions and HR Technology Company, enriching experience of over 175+ corporate customers and over 500,000 users. With the vision to simplify work life, PeopleStrong delivers its technology and services in one offering, using its on-demand technology product. PeopleStrong Alt has distilled tens of thousands of hours of ‘natural research and development (R&D) with a decade long experience of servicing the HR functions of top Indian companies, known for its penchant to innovate. The company has many firsts to its name, the recent one being India’s first native HR App for smartphones that aims to transform the future of work and work life in the HR world. PeopleStrong is the first company in the space to be successfully assessed on SSAE16.

About Wheebox

Wheebox is India’s leading online talent assessment company headquartered in India and spread across 5 countries globally. Wheebox partners with corporates  for finding and retaining best talent, using validated reliable and standardized test. Tests for pre-hiring and measuring learning initiatives using robust assessment tools and online video proctored secured solutions. Wheebox benchmarks over 3 million users annually across the globe. By aligning to the vision of Wheebox to “Measure World’s Talent”, it partners with over 5000 higher and vocational education campuses for conducting its proprietary Wheebox "Employability Skill Test” for final year graduates to benchmark competencies that matter the most for being employable in corporates. Wheebox’s partnership with many ‘Fortune 180’ large corportes together with hundreds of small and medium enterprises to power their hiring and competency development assessment needs globally.

Wheebox also accelerates “India Skills Report” a skill supply side study, which complements thousands of colleges to identifying, benchmarking and spotting areas of competencies. This supplements Institution wide candidates report for developing skills for employability. Wheebox also associates with many Indian states to design and deploy State Skills Report at Ministry of Labor and Employment with its proprietary BARO Career Interest Report for suggesting careers to candidates across Model Career Centers in India.

For ISR report 2018, please click here.