Skill Development: A Way to Leverage the Demographic Dividend in India

The world’s population is ageing fast and it is estimated that the global population aged 65 and above shall reach to 1.3 billion by 2040, which will be more than double of 530 million in 2010. Rapidly ageing population shall result in severe labor shortage across in the global market. The world’s largest economies like Germany, France and US are expected to suffer due to the acute shortage of skilled workers. According to a global study, presently India is one of the largest labor-surplus countries in terms of its working age group (15-64 years) populations worldwide. India is in demographic dividend phase and can generate skilled manpower for employment through effective use of vocational and skill development training. The present study is to examine how to create skilled labor force through effective use of schemes of Government of India, run by different ministries to facilitate its skill development mission target to train 500 million people by 2022.