World Youth Skills day – From Amazon to Coursera, how companies are helping India’s young population reskill themselves

• World Youth Skills day is celebrated on July 15.
• With the coronavirus pandemic, many of India’s young population are out of jobs, or are fresh out of college with no job offers.
• In such a situation, reskilling becomes an important factor to help people find new jobs.

World Youth Skills day is celebrated on July 15, and India which has over 600 million young people is the hotspot for global companies looking for talent. But with the coronavirus pandemic, many of these young people are out of job, or are fresh out of college with no job offers.

In such a situation, reskilling becomes an important factor to help people find new jobs.

Apprenticeships and free learning courses

Companies are partnering with Indian government and organisations to impart skills to the young population of the country.

Amazon India recently launched a skilling program under the National Apprenticeship Promotion Scheme (NAPS), across its fulfilment centres in India. Through the initiative, Amazon hopes to train youngsters whose learning journey or placement was impacted due to Covid-19 pandemic. The pilot program includes 1000 apprentices.

During the 6-month program, the apprentices will be trained on warehousing and inventory management skills for the roles of warehouse associates and process associates. “At Amazon, our business is naturally aligned to the government's priorities of enabling skilling and job creation. For us skilling is not only meaningful but a sustainable and long-term approach. We are deeply invested in creating opportunities for the youth which will help them secure gainful and skilled employment in the future,” said Swati Rustagi, Director of Human Resources, Amazon India Operations.

Meanwhile, learning platform Coursera has partnered with the government of Telangana through Telangana Academy for Skill and Knowledge (TASK) and aims to train 50,000 unemployed youth. Over 3800 courses will be made available for these young people.

The present pandemic induced slowdown should be seen as an opportunity and used effectively by students, graduates seeking jobs as well as professionals who are between jobs, to skill themselves in areas that are less likely to be impacted by a crisis of this nature” said Shrikant Sinha, CEO, TASK in a statement.

Students and employees take to upskilling

Given the uncertainty, graduates are focussing on reskilling more than ever. With the availability of free skilling courses, a survey by FirstNaukri highlights that more than 70% of the college students have already enrolled in reskilling courses online.

The companies hiring are also looking for students who are prepped for the future. Within organizations too, corporates should look at offering new digital skill learning opportunities to their employees. “Digital and soft skills that were once considered as add-ons, have suddenly become a necessity. To survive in this new normal, organizations need to train their employees in skills such as cloud computing, emerging technologies, virtual collaboration and communication to equip employees to function seamlessly in the remote working model,” said Lakshmi Mittra, VP, Center of Excellence (CoE) and Clover Academy, Clover Infotech.

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