Budget: Emphasis on Employment to Create Millions of Jobs, Say Experts

New Delhi: With the government putting strong emphasis on job creation, experts on Saturday said measures proposed in the Union Budget can help in creating millions of employment opportunities in the coming years.

"Jobs and hiring in India needs to shift from being 'qualification based' to being 'skill based' as this will ensure that even the educational institutions will focus on imparting skills that lead to employability, rather than doling out certificates and degrees," said Nitin Razdan, managing director of global management consultancy Hay Group India.

The government's 'Make in India' programme to make the country a manufacturing hub presents a huge opportunity for job creation. Moreover, increased emphasis on skill development and education would help make a lot of youth job-ready.

"With the government's impetus to boost growth and facilitate investments in high productivity sectors like infrastructure, manufacturing and related industries promises to create a vast pool of job opportunities in the coming years," said Vivek Nath, MD-India at global professional services company Towers Watson.

While presenting the Budget, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said that the government will soon be launching a National Skills Mission through the Skill Development and Entrepreneurship Ministry.

The mission will consolidate skill initiatives spread across several Ministries and allow us to standardize procedures and outcomes across our 31 Sector Skill Councils.

The minister also said, "To ensure that our young get proper jobs, we have to aim to make India the manufacturing hub of the world."

"Quite a progressive and positive budget, if the plans to invest in infra and mega power projects materialize, alongside the sops offered to SME businesses the boom in jobs would be unprecedented," said Joseph Devasia, India managing director at global executive recruitment firm Antal International.

The setting up of AIIMS, IITs and IT hubs across several states will help address the huge demand for IT jobs in India.

"We also see that the increased investment in sectors such as manufacturing in auto and defence equipment will open job avenues and steer economic growth & overall development," recruitment consultancy Kelly Services & OCG's India MD, Kamal Karanth, said.

"The budget allocation for startups should be used to promote startups in Tier 2 cities and beyond. This can lead to significant generation of quality employment at par with city counterparts for youngsters in these regions. Areas to be focused should be technology, commerce and training," said Sanjoe Jose, CEO of technology hiring platform Talview.com.