Building Digital Skills for the Changing Workforce

In News

• A recent report titled “Building Digital Skills for the Changing Workforce” has stated that about 7% of India’s workforce will need digital skills training in the coming years.

What are Digital Skills?

• They are broadly defined as the skills needed to “use digital devices, communication applications, and networks to access and manage information,” from basic online searching and emailing to specialist programming and development.
• Digital skill is not equal to education in the classic STEM (Science, technology, engineering and mathematics) disciplines.

Image Courtesy: Asset AWS 

Key Findings

• Prepared by:
  • The report has been prepared by AlphaBeta and commissioned by Amazon Web Services (AWS).
• Based on:
  • It is based on a survey of 1,012 digitally skilled workers in both technology and non-technology roles, and 303 employers in India, with representation from the public, private, and non-profit sectors.
• Pandemic and skill requirement:
  • About 27.3 million workers, representing 7% of the country’s workforce, will require digital skills training for their jobs over the next year, as demand for such skills, especially cloud-related skills, became more acute during the pandemic
• Training:
  • Only 45% of the employers have a training plan in place, which could affect their competitiveness in such areas as productivity, innovation, and employee retention. 
  • Job changes due to the COVID-19 pandemic have accelerated the need for more training for both tech and non-tech workers on digital capabilities in India
• The Accelerated Need for Digital Skills:
  • 85% of workers feel that they now need more digital skills to cope with changes in their jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic
  • 87% of organizations are able to fast-track their digitization goals after investing in training
• The Global Training Shortfall
  • Although 97% of organizations see a need to train their workers on digital skills, only 30% have done so, reflecting a 67% global training shortfall
  • To help narrow the global training shortfall, 174 million more workers will need to undergo digital skills training over the next year alone
  • The ability to use cloud-based tools at work is the most in-demand skill by employers by 2025. However, only 45% of workers have trained or are training in this skill
  • The share is even lower for more advanced cloud-related skills, at 16% for the management of transition from on-premises facilities to the cloud
• Unlocking Future Workforce Potential:
  • 93% of organizations and workers face barriers to accessing the digital skills they need to remain competitive
  • The lack of time to pursue training and the limited awareness of training options available are the top barriers faced by employers and workers to training
• Most in demand skill:
  • The ability to use cloud-based tools such as cloud developer tools, 
  • Online collaboration, accounting, and customer relationship management (CRM) software would be the most in-demand skill required by the employers by 2025, 
  • Technical support skills and cybersecurity skills.
  • Machine learning and cloud architecture design, which have emerged as the fifth and sixth most in demand digital skills
  • About 63% of the workers felt they would require training in cloud-related skills by 2025 to progress in their careers.

Image Courtesy: AWS

Issues

• Training: 
  • The need for digital skills training became more acute during the pandemic because of the need to cope with changes in their jobs due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Skill learning: 
  • These above mentioned skills are expected to be in high demand in businesses from healthcare to agriculture, fintech to media and entertainment
• Lack of time:
  • Lack of time to pursue training was the most commonly faced barrier to digital skilling, with 77% of workers in the country citing this. 
• Awareness and options:
  • Other reasons include limited awareness of training options, low training quality and high training costs.

Way Ahead

• The workers are looking to employers to provide skills training, creating an opportunity for organizations to take a more active role in providing workers with the time and tools to boost their technical knowledge.
• Workers also play a pivotal role in setting their careers up for success through digital skills training
• There is an opportunity for governments to work with industry to develop adequate skills training options and to broaden the awareness of such options to both organizations and workers. 
  • 76 percent of employers and workers in this study do not feel that government support for developing workforce digital skills in their countries is sufficient. So this thought and working needs to change.
• There are overwhelming benefits that digital skills training can bring to both workers and employers.

Source: TH