In a significant step towards strengthening India’s human capital, Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship and Minister of State for Education, Shri Jayant Chaudhary, today unveiled a comprehensive report titled “Skills for the Future: Transforming India’s Workforce Landscape” in New Delhi. The report has been developed by the Institute for Competitiveness (IFC) as part of an independent research effort based on publicly available datasets.
This initiative forms a part of the ongoing “Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav” celebrations, highlighting the nation’s strategic shift towards aligning education, vocational training, and skilling with market demands and industrial transitions.
Speaking at the launch, Shri Jayant Chaudhary emphasised the urgent need for a paradigm shift in the way skilling is conceptualised. “Skilling is to be understood not merely as a supply-side intervention, but as a demand-driven, market-aligned, and outcome-oriented ecosystem that addresses the evolving needs of industry and the workforce,” he stated. He also stressed the importance of integrating formal, informal, and experiential learning pathways, while calling for a robust employability index to measure the impact of skilling efforts.
The IFC report leverages unit-level data from the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) 2023–24 to examine key patterns in educational attainment, occupational distribution, and technical and vocational education and training (TVET) within the Indian workforce. According to the findings, 88% of the workforce is currently engaged in low-competency occupations, with only 10–12% employed in high-competency roles, highlighting a critical need for skill upgradation.
Five key sectors—Information Technology and IT-enabled Services (IT and ITeS), Textile and Apparel, Electronics, Healthcare and Life Sciences, and Beauty and Wellness—have been identified as skilling hotspots, accounting for more than 66% of vocational training in India. The report further highlights five high-potential regional clusters across these sectors, identified through Competitiveness Framework Analysis. The analysis draws from diverse sources, including the PMKVY 4.0 dashboard, Sector Skill Councils (SSCs), and the National Apprenticeship Promotion Scheme (NAPS).
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Secretary, Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, Shri Atul Kumar Tiwari, lauded the report and called for more evidence-based literature and research to support policy interventions in skilling. He emphasised the need to study structural changes across the skilling-education-work continuum to enable a resilient and inclusive workforce.
Mr. Amit Kapoor, Chair of the Institute for Competitiveness, expressed gratitude to the Ministry and reaffirmed IFC’s commitment to supporting India’s evolving skilling agenda.
The report recommends targeted, sector-specific interventions to build a future-ready workforce. It urges the creation of a standardised data collection mechanism to assess skill demands and track policy impact. Furthermore, it calls for industry participation through incentivised recruitment of skill-certified talent and provision of market-aligned training and fair wages.
As India looks ahead to becoming a global economic powerhouse, this report provides a timely blueprint for transforming its vast and diverse workforce into a skilled and competitive asset for the future.
