Recession and high unemployment rates in many countries have led to the criticism that the negative impacts of recession have also reached India. Statistics show that between December 2019 and March 2020, the unemployment rate in India has seen a drastic increase.
It is said that the jobless numbers have grown by more than a hundred thousand people. Even as most of the companies are shutting down operations, the government has encouraged banks to provide financial assistance to people who are facing huge debts and high-interest rates. Schemes like moratorium periods and other business positive reforms are being rolled out, but it is still early to comment on how effective these reforms would be.
The main reason for this slow down in the economy is the COVID-19 pandemic. This has led to the government’s decision to step in and provide monetary assistance to people who are facing financial crises. The situation is a peculiar one, the government has no other option than to put the country into lockdown. Now the question arises what has these difficult times taught us by far and what skills will the post lockdown India need to survive the recession.
What needs to be done in the Skills Development Arena?
The recent pandemic has shown us that there are many areas where we lack skills. This is with reference to the crisis management elements. We have realized during these times that we lack sufficient numbers of paramedics, pharma skills and health care skills in generals.
This is just one area, one thing more which we need to work upon as a nation is developing skills for crisis management. Although even the developed nations were not completely prepared for the COVID-19 pandemic, however, we at India need to be specifically sensitive to this idea. This is just one of the pandemic that has put halt to our economy and life. We are coping with it better than other nations, but the point is that we need to be prepared.
After the lockdown is over and the pandemic is gone, India will witness a paradigm shift in the way we conduct our business. With the China supply chain being negatively affected, we would have no other options but to upgrade our own domestic capabilities and become self-sustainable. This is a long and tough journey and the one that our nation has to take. It would mean that we would need to develop new skills and scale up our skills development efforts on a war footing. We have the numbers and now is the time to make them efficient and productive. Every calamity comes with an opportunity, with the right skills we are sure India will emerge as a global superpower and will become completely self-reliant for almost every commodity. All we need to do is, plan and execute new skills development efforts quickly.
