Public-Private Task Force Launched to Close India’s Skills Gap

· India will launch a national task force to close the skills gap, ensuring that education and training systems keep pace with the new demands of labour markets

· India’s Minister of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship and CEO of Infosys, will serve as Co-Chairs of the task force

· India is the second in a planned network of ten leading economies to establish country-level Closing the Skills Gap task forces in collaboration with the World Economic Forum

· By 2022, over half of workers in India will require reskilling to meet the talent demands of the future. Indian workers will require an average 100 days of learning, according to the Future of Jobs Report 2018

The Minister of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship of India and the Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of Infosys, in collaboration with the World Economic Forum, today launch a Task Force for Closing the Skills Gap in India, bringing together leaders from business, government, civil society, and the education and training sectors to accelerate the future-proofing of education and training systems in the country.

The goal of the Task Force in India is to convene the top 50 to 100 companies in the country to develop an action plan and objectives to address skills gaps. One of its first mandates will be to define targets for reskilling and upskilling in the adult workforce. According to the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs report, published in September, over half of India’s workforce will need to be reskilled by 2022 to meet the demands of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

The report, which is based on a comprehensive global survey of chief human resources and strategy officers, also finds that talent availability is the single most important factor in determining job locations for international businesses with operations in India and that 67% of those businesses surveyed said they expected to outsource functions by 2022 in response to changing skill requirements.

“With the world’s largest youth population and more than half of its population of working age, skills development will be critical to sustaining inclusive growth and development in India. The Closing the Skills Gap Task Force will be a significant step to accelerate the impact on skills development already achieved by bringing together relevant stakeholders to act collectively,” said Dharmendra Pradhan, Minister of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship of India and Co-Chair of the Task Force.

“Developing talent and the skillsets to effectively meet the dynamic workforce requirements of the future needs active participation from global enterprises, both in terms of investments in continual learning opportunities and collaboration with governments and educational institutions. I am excited that this taskforce will help bridge the skill gap and broaden the opportunity horizon for reskilled talent, while accelerating competitiveness for Indian companies”, said Salil Parekh, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, Infosys who is also a Co-Chair of the Task Force.

“Preparing for the future of work requires proactive collaboration on the part of the public and the private sector. The World Economic Forum’s Closing the Skills Gap Project aims to provide a platform for countries interested in piloting an accelerated approach to anticipating and managing the future of work. We are very pleased to be working with India and supporting the country’s ambitious growth and jobs agenda,” said Saadia Zahidi, Member of the Managing Board and Head of the Centre for the New Economy and Society, World Economic Forum.

The India Task Force is the second country-led public-private collaboration of the World Economic Forum’s Closing the Skills Gap Project after South Africa. The project serves as a platform to focus fragmented actions within one overarching mission to address future-oriented skills development, while at the same time supporting constructive public-private collaboration on urgent and fundamental reform of education systems and labour policies to prepare workforces for the future of jobs. Five initial country pilots are being established, including in G20 economies, which will serve as platforms of learning and contributing to the global body of knowledge on preparing people for the future of work, with a goal of establishing 10 national Task Forces by 2020. Complementary efforts are being driven by the Forum’s Closing the Skills Gap 2020 initiative, which seeks to gather commitments from global businesses to reskill and upskill 8 million people by 2020. So far, companies in India have committed to reach over 1 million workers.

This initiative forms part of the World Economic Forum’s Centre for the New Economy and Society. The Centre aims to build dynamic and inclusive economies and systems in an era of accelerated technological and political change, providing leaders with a platform to understand and anticipate emerging economic and social trends and to adapt policies and practices to our rapidly evolving context. It integrates the System Initiative on the Future of Economic Progress and the System Initiative on the Future of Education, Gender and Work, and serves as a hub for the most relevant insights and pioneering actions in these domains.