Dearth of skilled engineers
A study by employability assessment company, Aspiring Minds, claimed that 95 per cent of engineers in the country are not fit to take up software development jobs. Only 4.77 per cent candidates can write the correct logic for a programme - a minimum requirement for any programming job. Over 36,000 engineering students from IT related branches of over 500 colleges took Automata - a Machine Learning based assessment of software development skills - and over 2/3 could not even write code that compiles. While more than 60 per cent candidates cannot even write code that compiles, only 1.4 per cent can write functionally correct and efficient code. The employability gap can be attributed to rote learning based approaches rather than actually writing programmes on a computer for different problems. Also, there is a dearth of good teachers for programming, since most good programmers get jobs in industry at good salaries, Moreover, programming skills are five times poorer for tier III colleges as compared to tier 1 colleges, the study said.
From school to higher edu
As per IC3 Survey, 56 per cent of universities feel that students need to be helped by their high schools in making the transition from school to college. A staggering 98 per cent of universities feel students need much more career counselling at school level to be prepared better for higher studies. The two primary focus areas of universities when interacting with high schools is engagement or relationship building (58 per cent) and student recruitment (41 per cent). Though 45 per cent of universities feel their enrollments the same as last year despite the political troubles around the world, 31 per cent say that they have seen a small increase of around 3-9 per cent in this year's student enrollment. As many as 35 per cent students depend on their parents' opinion when it comes to selecting colleges while 33 per cent of students opt for internet research to make a decision. Career related decisions are extremely stressed about by students & teachers, as per to 46 per cent of educators.
Work from home on the rise
Work-from-home saw the highest growth in searches by job-seekers in 2017. According to job site Indeed, the search for ‘Work from Home’ jobs saw an increase of 111 percent. With companies offering competitive salaries and generous perks along with great flexibilities, employees are increasingly exploring flexible career opportunities that allow time for growth in personal capabilities.
Job search for Ayurveda saw a growth rate of 56 percent in 2017. However, the pharma sector, surprisingly saw a huge dip in searches, a 40 percent decrease in people seeking jobs in the segment. This could also be indicative of the impact of a larger social trend of Indians looking at adopting alternative/natural healing methods.
Among technology-related searches, machine learning, data scientist and data analytics jobs are popular searches. The survey said that global technology disruptions coupled with the Indian Government’s aggressive focus on digital has seen its impact on the local labour market.
While globally tech jobs are the most sought after, in India, job seekers are leaning towards public sector jobs. The survey said that the thrust of ‘Make in India ' and other progressive initiatives put forward by the Central Government has led to an increasing amount of interest in government jobs rather than technology companies.