SHILLONG, May 11 � India has just 12 per cent of skilled workforce, which has added to its unemployment problem and become a major issue for the country, chairman of sub-group of Chief Ministers, Prakash Singh Badal said here today.
After convening a meeting of Chief Ministers to upscale skill development, Badal also the Punjab CM said, India has one of the youngest workforces, but a large number of the population has remained unskilled and unemployed.
�Unemployment has become a major issue in India, as not many of the young population are skilled,� he said during a media briefing. India has the world�s youngest population with 65 per cent of its population 35 years or below.
Badal said that the issues of employability and unemployment have to be addressed through skill development.
The chairman said that in many parts of the world the percentage of skilled workforce out of the total population is as high as 80 to 90 per cent.
Badal said India needs to improve the skilled workforce level from the present 12 per cent. He, however, did not set a target or a timeline.
When asked why the level has remained so low, Badal said that such attention to upscale the skill level of the workforce was never given due attention. �There was never attention paid to improve the skill of the workforce and so a large number of the workforce has remained unskilled,� Badal said.
During the meeting issues were discussed in detail about the unskilled workforce. The sub-group would take the report of its various meeting and recommend its findings to the Government.
On the other hand, Badal said that some of the States were not forthcoming in giving their recommendations on up scaling the skill level of its workforce.
The meeting of the sub-group of the Chief Ministers was constituted by the governing council of National Institution for Transforming India (NITI) Aayog.
Apart from Badal Chief Ministers of Meghalaya, Assam, Goa, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Odisha, Puducherry, Tripura and Tamil Nadu are the members.
