The Hindu Business Line : HR shortage — let’s wake up to the threat

Chennai, April 12 Addressing the BL Club meeting, Mr T.V. Mohandas Pai, Director-HR, Infosys, gave details of HR shortage across layers. In infrastructure, India builds 1 billion sq ft of space, and at the rate of about 2,000 people for every million sq ft, 20 lakh people are required.

“But where are those plumbers, carpenters, etc?” Infosys builds about 10 million sq ft a year; “we are the third largest builder in India but our projects are delayed because of labour shortage. ”

There was also great demand for security people; Bangalore needs 2 lakh and Delhi 1.5 lakh security personnel. Mr Pai said India manufactured last year 1.57 million cars, and 5 lakh commercial vehicles. Presuming one in two cars needed a driver and each commercial vehicle required two drivers, “we need 1.7 million drivers, apart from additional people to service these vehicles. Where are these people?”

Typically countries handled such shortages by shoring up their vocational training systems, “but the curriculum in our vocational training courses is outdated and out of sync with reality.”

Earlier employers used to ask his friend in temping operations for “two hands, two legs and something on the head. Now they want just two hands and two legs and say forget the head. They’ve become desperate.” The same man gets about 1,500 women from the North East to work in the hospitality industry in Bangalore and Goa.

“About 25,000 young women come from the NE to the South each year; what will happen to the gender ratio there,” he wondered.

Education sector

In the education sector, Mr Pai said, India had 450 deemed and other universities, 18,000 colleges and 11 million young people. “We have an enrolment rate of 11 per cent in the age group 18-24; other emerging markets have an enrolment rate of 25 per cent, and the developed nations 52 per cent in their university systems. We graduate 4 lakh engineers, maybe 40,000 doctors, 1.25 lakh MBAs and 12,000 accountants. If we don’t increase our enrolment rate in higher education to 25 per cent, we are in trouble.” Also, about 70 per cent of our graduates were of indifferent quality and abysmal communication skills, he added.

Another big concern was on faculty shortage; the IIT system had a 30 per cent shortage and in most institutions there were not enough teachers to replace seniors retiring over the next 5-7 years.

“It’s a terrible situation, and we have a policy regime in New Delhi which has a mindset of the 1960s. They are cutting the cake in smaller bits instead of expanding its size,” he added.

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HR shortage — let’s wake up to the threat