Telangana at 9th place in jobs availability

Telangana State Gross Domestic Product grew at 10.1 per cent at constant prices during 2016-17 to Rs 5.11 lakh crore as against 9.5 per cent to 4.64 lakh crore during 2015-16. This was higher than the national average of 7.1 per cent during the same period. However, the growth came only from the secondary sector (industries) and tertiary sector (services) while the primary sector has been steadily declining since 2012-13 to 2016-17 mainly due to negative growth in the production of crops.

But, the worrying factor is rate of unemployment. Among the age group of 15-29 years, unemployment rate is estimated to be 7.7 per cent under at state level (3.8 pc in rural areas and 17.2 per cent in the urban areas). This indicates that youth unemployment is one of the major concerns at the present juncture, especially in urban areas.

In terms of nature of employment, 45.8 per cent of the total workforce is reported to be self-employed, 35.4 per cent as casual labour and about 16.1 per cent as wage/salaried earners while 2.7 per cent are contract workers. As per the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) report, the State of Telangana required about additional manpower of 50.9 lakh people – 29.1 lakh skilled and 11.5 lakh semi-skilled and 10.4 lakh unskilled labour during 2012-22.

However, the State would be able to produce 1.9 lakh skilled labour and 2.7 semi-skilled, it was stated. As the existing infrastructure for skill development is inadequate, the state may produce 10.4 lakh minimally skilled workers as against the requirement of 26.8 lakh by 2021-22; this indicates that there is an urgent need to intervene with skill development programmes to correct the balance in Telangana.

According to the report of the Skill Map India 2017 by Aspiring Minds, that Telangana has 3.47% of jobs available in India while Maharashtra is at the top with 19.72% followed by the National Capital Region (NCR) with 16.99%. Telangana, finds the 9th position on the jobs available and much behind than the States perceived to be not as growth oriented.

However, southern States of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu leads to next two spots with 16.03% and 9.80% respectively. Gujarat (5.63%), West Bengal (4.47%), Madhya Pradesh (4.11%) and Uttar Pradesh (3.7%) are placed above Telangana. In fact, the top four states put together offer close to 65% of the open positions across India.

The study has examined more than 10 lakh open jobs spread across 29 Indian states and 7 Union territories to ascertain demand for 92 job roles and 87 different skill sets in each state. Each job opening was automatically mapped to a generic role and further to the skills that are required to perform that job.

Among different skills, Software developers have the highest demand with 9.74% of the total open job share. After Software Developers, job roles such as Sales professionals, Customer Service, General Management, Marketing professionals and Computer Technicians are trending.

The most sought-after-skills include English comprehension, Deductive reasoning and Inductive reasoning. Amongst personality traits, Agreeableness and Extraversion top the chart. This clearly shows that industry demands communication and cognitive skills more than domain expertise.

Telangana doesn’t find a place in the top five in the two key skills linked to job creation — Deductive Reasoning and Software Development. Despite Hyderabad emerging as a major hub for software development over the years, Gujarat is ahead of Telangana in software development. Karnataka, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu are in top positions in software development due to their traditionally strong IT industry.

Telangana stands at the 7th position with 56.66 jobs on the availability of the jobs measured on per lakh of population Chandigarh top with 1,054 jobs per lakh of population but that is due to the fact it is a urban state with best of institutes and companies offering jobs. What is of concern to Telangana is that the neighbouring states Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Maharashtra are above it.

The report finds that Telangana engineering colleges are producing run-of-the-mill kind software professionals reflects in the fact that the State engineers lack deductive reasoning, another key skill in the job market. Deductive reasoning is the ability to make inferences and decide actions based on data containing multiple textual instructions and simple symbolic rules. Highest demand for deductive reasoning is observed in Maharashtra (19.77%), followed by Karnataka (17.46%).

The report also finds that Software Development and Sales are the most sought-after professions, and English Comprehension and Reasoning are the most in-demand skills. The report suggested that the government skill ecosystem including state skill missions like Telangana Academy for skill and Knowledge, National Academy of construction, Society for Elimination of Rural Poverty, SETWIN, besides plethora of private agencies and rural development efforts, can be utilized to choose the right areas to invest the capital to improve the alarming situation of Telangana.

By Gudipati Rajendera Kumar