The fifth edition of the report was brought out by the Confederation of Indian Industry ( CII ) in collaboration with its partners – Wheebox , PeopleStrong , Pearson , Association of Indian Universities ( AIU ), United Nations Development Programme ( UNDP ) and All India Council for Technical Education ( AICTE ). This unique initiative aims to bridge the talent demand and supply in the country , by providing a clear understanding of the requirement of skilled manpower in the various industries .

The report highlights that employment landscape is rapidly changing and new jobs are emerging with fast disruption in business models around the globe . Skills required today as well as job markets are markedly different from those 10 or even 5 years ago . The speed with which these changes are taking place is bound to accelerate . Therefore , the need of the hour is to build a skilling system which would enable the workforce to adapt and match the new requirements , a system that responds well to business needs and also provides new opportunities for all . The Skills Report 2018 highlights the current trends along with laying out what it will take for India to become the “ Skill Capital ” of the world .

The Report is a blend of two distinct sections – ( i ) the Wheebox Employability Test , an employability skill test assessing students in

the current context and ( ii ) India Hiring Intent Survey , a corporate job survey , which analyses industry responses to bring demand perspectives .

Wheebox Employability Test ( WEST )

WEST assessed the employability factor for students by looking at employability of the available pool of skilled people with the help of a structured online assessment tool . More than 5 lakh students from 5,200 institutions with varied educational backgrounds were approached for skill availability , covering 29 states and 7 Union Territories .

Results of the survey revealed that this year ’ s employability score reached a new level of 45.60 %, up by 5.16 % over last year ’ s score . The score indicates that around 45.6 % of students are employable and are ready to take up jobs . A higher score is

reflective of the efforts undertaken by various stakeholders , including the Government , to provide more employable resources to the economy .

Survey results further revealed that Information Technology ( IT ) and Computer Science courses have the highest employability rate with 64.5 % and 56 % respectively . The survey found that Engineers were also highly employable at 52 % and that MCA students ’ employability was on the rise in 2017 , registering a 13 % increase from 2016 .

Bangalore , Chennai , Indore , Lucknow , and Mumbai were the top 5 cities with high employability . The data also reported that there has been a decline in female employability in 2017 compared to last year from 41 % to 40 %, while male employability increased

10 August 2018