Working long hours will not increase productivity if workforce lacks skills

Two-thirds of India’s population is now in the working age group. Yet, India’s productivity is amongst the lowest in the world. Even as conversations on working more hours continue to highlight this shortcoming — L&T Chairperson’s suggestion of a 90-hour work week being the latest—a closer reading of two reports, released last week, suggest that the problem is way more complex and requires joining dots ina different direction.

- 

The QS World Futures Skill Index ranked the Indian market second in terms of its awareness and readiness to employ workers with proficiencies in advanced and emerging technologies in the digital sphere and the sustainability sector. However, the receptivity of business is one part of the story. To leverage the opportunities of India's demographic advantages and make the most of the global technological efflorescence, the Indian economy will require skilled professionals. The QS report shows why the country has a long way to go to meet this constantly shift-ing demand. The country's educational system does not make its young population “skill-fit”, it underscores. India has the numbers, but a large section of its labour force isn’t market ready.The other report, by India’s technical educa-tion regulator, the AICTE, reveals that two-thirds of post-graduate seats in India’s engineering colleges go vacant. In other words, it seems that masters’ level courses of an over-whelming number of technical institutes do not provide any value addition to the job market.