Yet another authoritative report from the National Employability Through Apprenticeship Program (NETAP) and TeamLease Skills University.
With answers to a raft of pertinent questions on the health of apprenticeships in India and deep-dive data-backed insights on current apprentice hiring levels and employer hiring intent for the 6 months (July-December 2019) The Apprenticeship Outlook and Index puts speculation to bed.
Who is it for?
A must read for HR and Talent Acquisition Managers, Team Leads & Managers, owners and Directors of small-medium businesses. 502 employers surveyed by the report across 12 major sectors and four regions (South, North, East and West) deliver their verdict in no uncertain terms.
Why is the Report Important?
Lack of relevant skills severely hampering India’s economic progress has been a thorny issue drumming up considerable debate and discussion in recent years. With rhetoric bandied to and fro, the need for robust metrics on skilling models such as apprenticeships has never been more germane.
What Does it Answer?
A comprehensive mapping of labour demand and supply by the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship in its 2016-17 Annual Report projects an incremental human resource requirement of 103.4 million between 2017-2022 across 24 high priority sectors and a skills training need of 126.87 million for the same period.
Apprenticeships have become a focal point for the government to alleviate some of the roadblocks standing in the way of better skills, jobs and wages. This report serves an extremely valuable purpose with factual data on whether apprenticeships are indeed making a mark in our battle against new highs of low skills unemployability.
Also Read: Can an Apprenticeship Make Youth More Employable?
Here’s a preview of the key findings:
How much has India Inc. engaged in apprenticeships in the recent past? With the private sector in the driver’s seat contributing to a massively impressive 51% growth (33000+ employers) in apprentice hiring in 2016-17 how well have apprenticeships in India taken root against the government’s original target to train 50 lakh apprentices by 2020?
What is the Apprenticeship Index? Made up of the Candidate Index (ratio of apprenticeship aspirants to the total workforce) and the Employer Index (ratio of apprentices in the formal workforce to the number of jobs created in the corresponding year)- how has the Apprenticeship Index performed and what does it tell us about the vigour and verve of the national apprenticeship schemes in the country?
Get your copy of the report to find out.
Why businesses engage apprentices? In strong endorsement for apprenticeships, a healthy 30% of respondents cited satisfying the skill needs of their company as the key reason to hire an apprentice.
Which sectors are hiring apprentices? Major sectors engaging apprentices under the National Apprenticeship Promotion Scheme (NAPS) are Manufacturing & Allied Industries, Retail, Healthcare & Pharma, Tourism & Hospitality, Automobile, FMCG & D, IT & ITeS.
Who and in what functional areas are companies hiring? Find out which are the top profiles (Mechanic, Electrician Graduate, Apprentice Mechanical Engineer etc) and operational areas (Production & Engineering, Sales & Marketing, IT etc) poised for growth in apprentice hiring.
Have sweeping amendments to the Apprentice Act 1961 helped the recent push for apprenticeships? Among a raft of changes, engaging apprentices in the service sector has now been made compulsory. Although manufacturing still takes the lion share in hiring of apprentices at 89%, booming service sectors like Retail and Hospitality & Tourism have been extremely upbeat in their hiring intent with 42% of employers surveyed citing willingness to hire apprentices in the period July-December 2019.
What about hiring intent in the short-medium term? Indicative of extremely positive sentiment, apprenticeship engagement forecast is pegged at 41% (currently 36%) for the 6-month period July-December 2019. Besides the Eastern region, all other regions show a significant uptrend in regional apprenticeship engagement.
Do apprentices add value to an organisation? Do apprenticeships make financial sense for employers? How do apprentices impact a business’s bottom line? These are foundational questions critical to both policy-makers and employers. We previously explored return of investment (ROI) in apprenticeships for employers where we found a quick positive ROI from an apprenticeship programme. But what do the latest numbers on apprentice productivity as found by this report reveal? Get your copy to find out.
You may also be interested in Attn: Hiring managers. Are you missing a key hiring strategy?
What skill sets are companies looking for in apprentices? A mammoth 62% of India’s population is in the working age group (15-59 years). However, employability rates of college graduates stagnate under 50%. Clearly, run-of-the-mill degrees are not making the mark. So, what skills in apprentices are of value to employers?
Technical knowledge and communication skills take the top spots with ‘willingness to learn’ a highly desirable trait as well.
What about stipend payout trends? Apprenticeship stipends have been mulled over from time to time for an annual and/or needs-based revision. To ramp up the attractiveness of apprenticeships, minimum stipends were very recently doubled to between Rs 5,000-Rs 9,000 per month with 25% of the payout reimbursed by the government.
However, what does this report find in stipend trends notwithstanding the available financial incentives? Is there a case to raise the government’s contribution? And equally, shouldn’t employers start admitting that lower wages beget lower skills in a vicious cycle?
Find out by getting your copy of the report.
And There’s Much More
- The top future sectors forecast to have the greatest skill demand
- The top states and regions hiring apprentices in 2016-17
- What are the socio-politico-economic growth drivers of apprenticeships in India?
- Do companies have a gender preference in apprentices and what does that divulge about apprentices being equal opportunity providers?
- Which category of apprentices (Trade/Graduate/Technician/Tech-Voc) registered the most hiring?
- What size (micro-small-medium-large) of organisation is hiring the greatest number of apprentices?
Be Informed. Get your copy today.
