Sun never sets on Indians, the spirit of Overseas Indians working for Global growth – thepolicytimes.com

Once British Empire was known as one where Sun never sets as they were ruling countries across the globe. They were forced to leave all these and now they are basically part of the UK. Sunset and sunrise are the continuous universal process which is known to the world. But in todays geopolitical scenario Indians do not have a sunset. India has the worlds largest network of overseas population. They are one of the most widely spread and diverse communities across the world from the most advanced USA to Zimbabwe, from Japan to Burkina Faso, there are more than 210 countries where 32 million overseas Indians live. The Overseas Indians still maintain strong cultural and social linkages with India, through food habits, social mores, marriages, Bollywood, etc. Our country has long been an important player in the global supply of professionals and students. The scale and magnitude of emigration or the brain drain from India continue to be voluminous quantitatively as well as qualitatively for both these categories. India has acknowledged and welcomed the contribution the overseas Indians have made to its development by way of remittances, deposits which are more than US$80 billion. They have brought a good amount of technology along with propriety to them and their relatives here. In turn, India has developed several measures to meet its aspirations by providing protection of its interests in India and abroad. India became proactive in interceding with the host countries when problems arose even though they had gone on their own contracts. In countries where the Indians are powerful and influential, they became Indias unofficial ambassadors, who promote Indian interests there. On balance, both sides benefited from this cooperation.

The world has seen many epidemics but all of them were largely contained within the regions where they originated. But COVID-19 has hit nearly every country in the world in just over three months and many countries have registered several more cases than China, where the virus originated. The presence of a virus anywhere is clearly a threat to people everywhere. Globalized cities are the most vulnerable and, by extension, any country that transacts through them is at risk. Most of the Indians stayed wherever they were and worked hard for the country where they stayed to come out of the pandemic state. They were very effective as medical practitioners as also other areas of importance to serve humanity to their best capacity. That means more global cooperation, not less and in this, there is a very big role for India and Indians abroad as 32.10 million Indians are the most spread people globally. There are 13.46 million non-resident Indians (NRIs), those holding an Indian passport, and 18.68 million personsof Indian Origin(PIOs) but ordinarily residing outside the country, spread across more than 210 nations, according to the MEA. But 8.9 million of them live in just six countries. Among them, the largest number of Indians, 3.4 million, live in the United Arab Emirates, which is approximately 27% of all NRIs around the world. Another 2.6 million are in Saudi Arabia while Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and Bahrain were home to another 2.9 million NRIs.

The major positive impact has been the rapid increase in remittances from Indians abroad, but the economic costs of remittances are often high. A strong relationship with its population abroad is important for India. Indians in the West Asian countries also account for annual remittances of over US$40 billion. Remittances and investment should only be one element of that relationship. It is also the duty of the government to ensure that the demands of sections of the Diaspora who lack political and economic clout is also given attention and that they do not feel neglected.

Skills and knowledge are the driving forces of economic growth and social development for any country. India is blessed with 65% of its youth in the working-age group. As compared to other developed and developing countries, India has a unique window of opportunity for another 20-25 years called the demographic advantage. If India can skill its people with the requisite life skills, job skills, or entrepreneurial skills in the years to come the demographic advantage can be converted into the dividend wherein those entering the labor market or are already in the labor market contribute productively to economic growth both within and outside the country.

An extensive new report found that by 2030, more than 85 million jobs could go unfilled because there arent enough skilled people to take them. Indeed, the study finds that by 2030, there will be a global human talent shortage or roughly equivalent to the population of Germany. Left unchecked, in 2030 that talent shortage could result in about US$8.5 trillion in unrealized annual revenues. Governments and private organizations must make talent strategy a key priority and take steps now to educate, train, and upskill their existing workforces.

Much of the shortage is based on simple demography. Japan and many European nations, for instance, have had low birth rates for decades. In the United States, most baby boomers will have moved out of the workforce by 2030, but younger generations will not have had the time or training to take many of the high-skilled jobs left behind. A major crisis is looming over organizations and economies throughout the world. By 2030, expectations for skilled workers will outstrip supply, resulting in a global talent shortage of more than 85.2 million people. Signs are already emerging that within two years there wont be enough talent to go around. In countries with low unemployment and booming manufacturing production, including the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, and Slovakia, a labor shortage has already accelerated automation and increased use of roboticsnot to replace people, but because there arent enough of them to fill the factories.

Left unchecked, the financial impact of this talent shortage could reach US$8.452 trillion in unrealized annual revenue by 2030, equivalent to the combined GDP of Germany and Japan. The United States alone could miss out on US$1.748 trillion in revenue due to labor shortages, or roughly 6% of its entire economy. While leaders are betting heavily on technology for future growthas per survey report says that 67% of CEOs believe technology will be their chief value generator in the future of workthey cannot discount the value of human capital. Even companies that are using more robotics foresee a growing need for human talent with advanced skills; for example, redeploying people from the factory floor, where robots can perform repetitive work, to the research laboratory. The problem, however, is the mismatch between technological advances, including automation, artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning, and the skills and experience workers need to leverage these advanced tools. Technology cannot deliver the promised productivity gains if there are not enough human workers with the right skills. This has set the scene for a global talent crunch.

The talent crunch, as modeled in this study, refers to the gap between talent supply and expectation at three critical milestones: 2020, 2025, and 2030. Despite the risk, by examining the scale, impact, and timing of the talent crunch and what it means for organizations over the long term. The global growth, demographic trends, under-skilled workforces, and tightening immigration mean that even significant productivity leaps enabled by technological advances will be insufficient to prevent the talent crunch.

More granularly, we examined talent supply and demand in each of the 20 economies as a whole and within three major knowledge-intensive industriesfinancial and business services (including insurance and real estate), technology, media, and telecommunications (TMT), and manufacturingand at three distinct skill levels, referenced throughout as:

The scale and impact of the talent crisis at each milestone in terms of skilled employee shortages and what they imply in terms of lost opportunity for value creation. For instance, the United States financial services sector will suffer the most from stunted growth due to lack of talent, with US$435.69 billion in projected unrealized economic output, equal to about 1.5% of the countrys entire economy.

For the all-important technology sector. a labor-skills shortage will reach 4.3 million workers by 2030, or 59 times the number of employees of Alphabet, Googles parent company. On the positive side, India is projected to have a skilled-labor surplus of around 245.3 million workers by 2030, the only country in our study expected to have a surplus, owing mainly to its vast supply of working-age citizens and government programs to boost workers skills. Fortunately, there is time to mitigate the risk. Governments and organizations must make talent strategy a key priority and take steps now to educate, train, and upskill their existing workforces.

The gap between the growth in demand and the growth in the supply of talent, 2011 to 2021

(Red indicates trend deceit, green a trend surplus, yellow a broad balance. Numbers show trend growth as annual percentages.)

This global skills shortage could result in US$8.452 trillion in unrealized annual revenue by 2030equivalent to the combined GDP of Germany and Japan. The impact of the talent crunch is so significant that the continued predominance of sector powerhouses is in question, from London as a global financial services center to the United States as a technology leader to China as a key manufacturing base. As a result, organizations may be prompted to relocate their headquarters and operational centers to places where the talent supply is more plentiful. Governments will be forced to invest in improving their peoples skills to avert corporate flight and to defend their nations income and status.

Secured Governance for Overseas Indians through Education A Channel for Prosperity through Knowledge Growth

Secured Governance for skill development is a strategy that relates to the develop a relationship between the development of Education infrastructures to various other sectors along with various institutions as partners and Government as governing body to foster, coordinate and create a defined Skill Training Centre along with various existing educational infrastructure or to create a new cluster/s on strategically defined locations that improves and develops the center as a whole through regional strategies, technology, and interdependency among various other sectors of growth.

The skill gap in India is addressed effectively by the National Skill Development Policy (NSDP) Government having recognized that skill development will play a vital role in transforming India into an economic power to reckon with had set a target of skilling 500 million people. For this, the country has rightly understood the need to set up many Skills Universities including Private Skills Universities in partnership with the industry.

There is a high correlation between skill levels and building skill capital. The National Skills Qualification Framework (NSQF) has defined levels of skills based on outcomes such as

Thus, the levels vary from skills involving simple and routine physical or manual task(Level 1) to skills involving the operation of machinery and electronic equipment (Level 2) to skills involving records of work (Level 3) to decision making and creativity based contribution (Level 4 High-end Skills).

NSQF further classified skills into Domains Specific Skills and Soft Skills and concluded that Skills Universities conceptualized with a clear mandate of skill education can alone offer the necessary practical real-world training in industrial and services sectors to lay the foundation for the required skills training system in India. In the wake of the Skill India Mission, some Skills Universities have come up to provide standards in the Skills field. These Universities exercise constant ingenuity and are providing innovative models.

The concept of secured governance does not believe that dramatic changes can be achieved only through a revolution that requires upturning all the procedures evolved through years of efforts and experience. It realizes the tools for bringing about effective and sustainable changes are already available in the system. They can be made more effective by defining linkages, effective response mechanisms, and dynamic feedback systems. Emphasis is placed on defining the relationship between sectors of growth, institutions, and government to foster coordination and create an environment that improves the system through regional strategies, technology and by taking cognizance of the myriad of interdependencies.

Secured governance for Education has major characteristics like participation, rule of law, transparency, and responsiveness, at each stage of its operations and in developing a robust education system in the country. With improved resource allocation, enhanced governance, Interdependency among sectors, and transparency in the system going hand in hand with development and effective use of Information Technology and Innovation can deliver a safer, cleaner, and more accountable delivery of self-sustaining Education infrastructure and services.

More Potential to reap more Remittance through Secured Governance:

Indias population is huge at 1.38 billion. It is fast expanding at a rate of 17% and integrating rapidly into the global economy. India is among the young countries in the world, with the proportion of the workforce in the age group of 15-59 years, increasing steadily. However, presently only 2% of the total workforce in India have undergone skills training. India has a great opportunity to meet the future demands of the world, India can become the worldwide sourcing hub for a skilled workforce. Besides over 65% of Indias large population is below 35 years of age; a robust skills training and certification system for these large numbers is a mammoth task.

Even India has the largest population of English speakers. Due to its colonial legacy, English became a part of the Indian education system, which has now become an advantage. Indians thus have an edge over other countries due to their fluency in English.

Equipping the workforce with the skills required for the jobs of today and those of tomorrow is a strategic concern in the national growth and development outlook of India.

The most widely recognized immediate benefit from the international labor migration remains the flow of remittances, which not only augments scarce foreign exchange but also provides a potential source of additional savings and capital formation. India could look at preparing the workforce for global opportunities so that it can utilize its premium position as the human resource reservoir. Given the dynamic labor markets, it is also important the workforce learns and readies itself as quickly as possible.

India will continue to play a greater role for sustained growth and with Indians with better skills ready to take up the challenges for all the countries. Indians going abroad are equivalent to Export of Supercomputer and India should plan this properly and effectively with Education and skilling from Education playing a good role.

Most of the Indians abroad are highly skilled and professional enough to deserve great pay. By 2025, Indias demographic dividend is expected to contribute 25% of a global workforce. They can be made more effective by defining linkages, effective response mechanisms, and dynamic feedback systems. Emphasis is placed on defining a relationship between sectors of growth, institutions, and government to foster coordination and create an environment that improves the system through regional strategies, technology and by taking cognizance of the myriad of interdependencies.

India is the only country expected to have a surplus of highly skilled financial and business services labor by 2030. India is projected to have a skilled-labor surplus of around 245.3 million workers by 2030, the only country that is expected to have a surplus, owing mainly to its vast supply of working-age citizens and government programs to boost workers skills.

We could contribute greatly to the worlds labor-intensive manufacturing jobs. India could play a vital role in this greater global opportunity in technology and other knowledge-intensive fields. A designated region intended to attract foreign investment, retain local students, build a regional reputation by providing access to high-quality education and training for both international and domestic students, and create a knowledge-based economy. A multitude of education HUBs can include different combinations of domestic/international institutions, branch campuses, and foreign partnerships, within the designated region. Businesses worldwide need management graduates who have the tools to succeed globally leadership skills, cultural awareness, foreign language proficiency, and an understanding of how the global marketplace functions. Outbound Exchange Program wherein we send our students to associated universities or corporate houses for skill development and knowledge exchange. Inbound Exchange Program will facilitate initiatives for welcoming students from other countries to facilitate knowledge transfer targeting at least 10% of the students from other universities.

India is a rapidly rising economic power and will also by 2020 be the youngest country in the world with 64% of its population in the working-age group. Through secured governance establish a vibrant institutional framework in the educational system. India could capture a greater global opportunity in technology and other knowledge-intensive fields.

By,Dr. P. Sekhar, Chairman,Global Smart Cities Panel & Micro Tech Global Foundation

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Sun never sets on Indians, the spirit of Overseas Indians working for Global growth

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The Overseas Indians still maintain strong cultural and social linkages with India, through food habits, social mores, marriages, Bollywood, etc. Our country has long been an important player in the global supply of professionals and students.

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TPT News Bureau

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THE POLICY TIMES

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Sun never sets on Indians, the spirit of Overseas Indians working for Global growth - thepolicytimes.com