'Skilling is our youths' passport to the future of work'

livemint.com:

₹1.48 trillion allocated for education, employment, and skilling, today’s announcements bode well for the future of our youth, given the government’s emphasis on skill development. The barriers faced by the workforce are immense: Nearly 73% of workers aged 15-59 years did not receive any formal or informal vocational or technical training, according to the Periodic Labour Force Survey 2022-23. With India’s demographic dividend expected to peak around 2041 and the working-age population forecast to shrink, we must seize the current window of opportunity to harness the potential of India’s labour force and fuel economic growth.

In parallel, we must leave no young person behind, and ensure that the fruits of skilling initiatives are also reaped by women, whose labour force participation has been historically low. By introducing initiatives to this end, the Budget indicates a positive way forward. Empowering women is not just a social good but also an economic imperative.

In fact, a Barclays report indicates that ensuring that women account for half the new workforce created by 2030 is critical for India to attain an 8% GDP growth rate. Skilling begets progress—to bridge India’s skills gap and develop a more mature ecosystem that prioritizes not just opportunities today but also a secure means of livelihood tomorrow, the path ahead is marked by several critical steps. One is to bolster institutional support, reaffirmed by the budget’s emphasis on upgrading industrial training institutes.