Skill India Initiatives

by Jemma Barsby Content Writer

India has the world's largest youth workforce and it is estimated that there will be 104.62 million fresh entrants in the labour market by 2022. However, the current youth unemployment rate continues to remain as high as 10 per cent with 31 million unemployed in India and more importantly, 43 per cent of India's youth aren't in employment, education or training.

The unemployment rate in Karnataka is 5.1 per cent as of today and one of the main reasons for this is the gaps in their skills, which prevents them from being gainfully employed.

On the occasion of the fourth World Youth Skills Day on July 15, 2018, LabourNet, one of India's social enterprises in skill development and enabling sustainable livelihoods, announces its future plans to expand its focus on skilling youth in Karnataka.

LabourNet has been skilling youth and providing opportunities for wage employment and self-employment through creation of micro enterprises. Dr Gayathri Vasudevan, co- founder and CEO, LabourNet, said: "Youth skill development is the need of the hour to ensure that today's youth of Karnataka don't remain unemployed or under-employed due to gaps in their skills. By partnering with governments, local corporates and industry bodies, we have trained over 700,000 Indians so far and are on our way to impacting 10 million livelihoods by the year 2022".

LabourNet also shared its plans for skilling in the Healthcare and Infrastructure Equipment sectors, which would help provide employment opportunities in India and abroad. LabourNet has been chosen as one of the first few authorized partners for the Government's strategic Indo-Japan Technical Intern Training Program (TITP) that aims to send more than three lakh Indian youth to Japan for a one-year internship programme and technical training.

LabourNet has partnered with the leading chain of Ayurveda hospitals - AyurVAID to train more than 10,000 Ayurveda Paricharaks (Caregivers) in the next five years. These Paricharaks will be trained for a year as a caregiver, besides being trained in Japanese language, post which they will be sent to Japan for hands-on internship.

Rajiv Vasudevan, MD and CEO of AyurVAID, explained: "Elder care workers are in high demand in Japan with more than 380,000 required by the year 2025. These caregivers need a very high level of professional training in healthcare to be able to provide high quality, standardised care as Japan has developed outstanding technology and know-how in care work. Ayurveda Paricharaks trained at AyurVAID shall have the technical expertise as well as skill sets and hence shall be suited for this high-class training, and with our partnership with LabourNet we would be able to ensure our trainees meet the highest quality to qualify them as Health Caregivers for Japan."

To boost the Infrastructure Equipment sector, which is expected to cross 100,000 units per year during FY 18-19, LabourNet has partnered with Infrastructure Equipment Skill Council (IESC). The Infrastructure Equipment can only be operated by trained and certified operators and mechanics and LabourNet has been providing skilling for this sector by developing Qualification Packs Courses for training entry level, middle level and supervisors for 29 different job roles.

HS Mohan, CEO of IESC, said: "It is projected that over a million, additional trained operators and mechanics would be required to meet the expected growth of construction equipment. Therefore, skilling and certification of the unemployed youth is critical to ensure proper usage of these sophisticated equipment and reducing the maintenance costs."

Skill India Initiatives - India has the world's largest youth workforce and it is estimated that there will be 104.62 million fresh entrants in the labour market by 2022. For more information visit: https://www.dailypioneer.com/