Celebrated on July 15th every year since 2014, when the United Nations instituted World Youth Skills Day (WYSD); the theme for 2022 is “Transforming Youth Skills for the Future.” WYSD highlights the vital need to equip young people with future-ready skills,making them employment ready.
With rapid technological advances and evolving socio-economic trends in the backdrop of the COVID pandemic, job roles are changing at a pace and depth that has rendered an estimated 1.3 billion people worldwide affected by a skills mismatch. Therefore, the skills ecosystem requires skilling, reskilling and up skilling of massive proportions. As per McKinsey, 25 percent more workers than previously estimated will potentially need to switch occupations due to the pandemic.
Speaking on the occasion of WYSD, Dr Ajay Kela, President, and CEO, of Wadhwani Foundation, said, “Digital transformation of businesses, accelerated by COVID, is opening large volumes of high-paying job opportunities for global youth.
Further explaining the changing paradigm in skilling,Sunil Dahiya, Executive Vice President, Wadhwani Opportunity, added, “Covid-19 has effected fundamental changes at the workplace that demand future-proof skilling for future-ready jobs largely driven by advancing technologies and automation. However, along with the increasing importance of technological skills, the need for soft or employability skills has also surged.”