Given the pandemic situation this year, the job losses have been steep across the world. In India, the situation is dire. We do not have an official statistics of the number of people who lost jobs. Of the 130 crore population, about 85 crore people are in the work force, and the shocking statistics is that 80% of the Indian working population thrives on less than INR 5,000 a month – that is less than INR 170 per day. The Indian Micro, Small, Medium Enterprises (MSME) hire 80+ crore working Indians and contribute to 30% of India’s GDP. There are 6.3 Million officially reported MSME’s in India with 33% in Service, 32% in Manufacturing and 35% in Trade. However, searching for skilled labor continues to be this sectors biggest challenge. The enterprises solely rely on word-of-mouth. As a result, the time-to-hire component stretches between 3-6 months and invariably affects an enterprise’s efficiency and productivity, in both short and long terms.
Important FACT on Indian blue-collar workforce:
This unorganized workforce do not have digital presence. Most are illiterate and do not have access to internet or smartphones. While basic mobile penetration is almost 100% in India, smartphone penetration is less than 30%. Over 60% of India’s population still do not have access to internet. Even if smartphone & internet penetrations reached 100%, it would STILL NOT solve MSME’s hiring woes. This workforce cannot be expected to compose a resume, read job descriptions, and apply to jobs on a regular basis – owing to the fact that most workers are self-employed and supplement their income with part-time work. India’s workforce can be grouped as follows:
Self-Employed: 47 %
Casual Labor: 33 %
Waged/Salaried: 17%
Contract workers: 3%
It is important to note that 80% of Indian workforce (Self-employed + casual labor) are daily-wage based. As noted above, the underprivileged workforce cannot be expected to use technology and search for jobs daily. Given high illiteracy numbers in this sector, even if smartphones and internet were given free of cost, executing job searches will be challenging for daily-waged workers. Therefore, it is imperative that jobs must go to them. This is the only way to empower jobs in India.
So what India needs is technology that empowers talent-on-demand because when most of the workforce is daily-waged, the demand side (work providers) can find people within minutes, based on immediate availability. Be it full-time or part-time, this will pave the way to an all-inclusive job empowerment – including housewives and retired people. Even the white collar profession is evolving into a talent-on-demand type hiring, especially in pandemic times, where many companies do not want to take the responsibility of hiring full-time and pay for healthcare and retirement benefits.
Talent-on-demand is imminent and it is the revolution that is taking place across the world. In such a situation, there is no divide between blue or white collar professions. People’s subject expertise and super skills will be the only benchmark for getting pursued. This implies that one person can be involved with multiple engagements / companies at a given time.
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