Bridging the skill gap: Opportunities for skills training in India’s organized retail sector

While the global population is ageing rapidly, India, with one of the youngest populations in the world, is at a strategic advantage with regards to demographic dividend. However, almost three fourths of India’s population is unskilled. The World Economic Forum’s Global Talent Risk report (2011) cautions that developing countries like India and Brazil will also face huge skill gaps due to low employability. There is a wide gap between the skills required in industry and those provided by the education system. Despite the efforts of the National Skills Development Mission the task of achieving the targeted 500 million skilled manpower by 2022 seems daunting. Several path-breaking public-private partnerships like the National Skills Development Corporation (NSDC) are leading significant changes by increasing the supply of training providers. However, there are several aspects of the job market that need to be understood well for this highly ambitious target to be achieved. The announcement of the government’s decision to allow FDI in retail is already leading to heavy speculation of a surge in employment opportunities in this sector (Sengupta, 2012). A direct result of FDI would be increase in the number and the format of retail, which would result in the generation of jobs in multiple categories. This development brings with it an unprecedented need for nation-wide availability of skilled labor and an increased demand for comprehensive skills training. Although there have been several reports analyzing the overall skills development scenario, the nature of the evolving retail sector demands a detailed examination of recruitment, employment and career development processes in the low-skilled sector