The Building Digital Skills for the Changing Workforce report was authored by AlphaBeta and commissioned by AWS
The Building Digital Skills for the Changing Workforce report was authored by AlphaBeta and commissioned by AWS
Some 27.3 million workers, making up 7% of the country’s labor force, will need digital skills training for their jobs over the next year as demand for such skills, especially cloud-related skills, increases during the pandemic, according to a new report Has .
The Building Digital Skills for the Changing Workforce report was created by AlphaBeta and commissioned by AWS. It is based on a survey of 1,012 digitally skilled workers in both technological and non-technical roles and 303 employers in India, with representatives from the public, private and non-profit sectors.
“The need for digital skills training has become more acute during the pandemic, with 95% of workers in India saying they need more digital skills – the ability and knowledge to apply digital technologies to tasks in the workplace – to keep up with the changes coping in their job due to the COVID-19 pandemic,” the report said, adding that the number of workers who need digital skills for their jobs is expected to increase by 27.3 million over the next year will.
Use of cloud-based tools
Despite this, only 45% of employers have a training schedule that could hamper their competitiveness in areas such as productivity, innovation and employee retention. The report found that the ability to use cloud-based tools such as cloud developer tools, online collaboration, accounting, and customer relationship management (CRM) software would be the skill most in demand by employers by 2025, followed by through technical support skills and cybersecurity skills.
“The need for more advanced cloud computing skills including machine learning and cloud architecture design emerging as the 5th and 6th most in-demand digital skills by employers in India by 2025. These skills are expected to be in high demand in companies ranging from healthcare to agriculture, fintech to media and entertainment,” she pointed out.
About 63% of workers believed they would need training in cloud-related skills by 2025 to advance in their careers.
More education
Genevieve Lim, Director for APAC, AlphaBeta (part of Access Partnership), said: “While the need for digital skills has been growing for years, research shows that job changes due to the COVID-19 pandemic have accelerated the need for more training for both tech – as well as non-tech workers on digital skills in India”.
Ms. Lim stressed that organizations have accelerated their digitization process to deal with the pandemic and ensured their long-term competitiveness. “Transitioning to a digital-first economy will help countries recover from COVID-19 and secure a stronger economic future. Governments urgently need to work with employers, training providers and workers to meet these diverse and growing digital learning needs,” she noted.
Amit Mehta, Head of AWS Training and Certification, AISPL, AWS India and South Asia, noted that AWS is investing hundreds of millions of dollars worldwide to provide free cloud computing skills training to 29 million people and has already trained over a million of them has people in India with cloud skills since 2017.
The report found that lack of time for upskilling was the most common barrier to digital upskilling, with 77% of workers in the country citing this. Other reasons are limited awareness of training opportunities, low training quality and high training costs.
