Image for representation
Credit: PTI photo
Bengaluru: To improve workforce employability, we need to address skill mismatches in the labour market. The Economic Survey stressed that skilling initiatives in employment not only bridge skill gaps and enhance productivity and decent work opportunities, but they also catalyse social mobility by enabling upward economic progression.
As the country's skill landscape expands with a growing working-age population, skilling programmes need to work together in a mutually reinforcing way. The survey found that the central challenge in the country's skilling landscape is not the lack of training effort but the weak translation of training into durable labour market value. "Making skilling truly work requires a shift in both mindset and mechanics: from producing trained persons to producing workers whose skills are valued, verified and retained," it said.
Making skilling work in India requires aligning institutional incentives, employer partnerships, course portfolios, placement services, and integrity mechanisms around the lived outcomes of trainees.
The survey also stressed the future-ready workforce through apprenticeships. The National Apprenticeship Promotion Scheme (NAPS) and NATS have been expanded to cover a wider range of sectors and enterprises. Over 43.47 lakh apprentices have been engaged under PM-NAPS across 36 states/UTs, with participation from more than 51,000 establishments, and female participation reaching 20%.
The NATS programme also recorded engagement of 5.23 lakh apprentices in FY25.