Demand for Factory Jobs Outpace Engineering, Management Jobs; Is Make in India Responsible?

First, a brief history of jobs.

Industrial Age, which began around 1760 in Great Britain before spreading to rest of Europe is considered a historical turning point for the entire human civilization; and the reason was that, it generated jobs for almost everyone. Factories gave birth to new ideas, new wealth, and every country prospered.

The Information Age which started in late 2000, and created millions of new jobs globally, is often compared with Industrial Age in impact on the society and world economy.

However, the plain truth is that, Information and Technology cannot control the rising unemployment in India, as it demands few specialized skills, which majority of Indians doesn’t have. But does it mean that we have no other option to provide jobs to thousands of unemployed youths of India?

TeamLease, a leading recruitment firm has found out that the grip of IT over creation of new jobs is now gradually fading; and factory jobs is back in massive demand. In fact, in some cases, the salaries offered in factories are much more than Engineering or Management jobs.

The powerful return of Blue Collar Jobs and demise of White Collar Jobs is actually signifying something big in the job sector; and going by the data, it seems that PM Modi’s Make in India vision is the fulcrum here.

Factory Jobs Are Back

TeamLease analysed 12 major industries namely apparel, automotive, BFSI (banking, financial services and insurance), construction, electronics, food processing, gems & jewellery, healthcare, life sciences, logistics, retail and travel and tourism; and found that jobs located at factories are increasing at an amazing pace.

In fact, job profiles like advance pattern maker (apparel), service supervisor (automotive) and master maker (gems and jewellery) is being offered at a higher payout, compared to modern-day ‘wonder’ degrees like MBA-HR or MBA-Marketing.

This sudden rise in demand for vocationally skilled job profiles over management jobs is quite surprising, and crucial. And, the rise in salary of such blue collar jobs is also a reality. As per the report, factory jobs are right now paying 10-27% more than engineering or management jobs in some of these sectors.

TeamLease Services senior vice president Rituparna Chakraborty said, “The growing parity in pay will draw hordes of youngsters to blue collar jobs and help in improving the social signalling value of vocational jobs. A gaping demand-supply imbalance and an acute shortage of skilled workers are driving the transformational shift in payout structures,”

Poor quality of engineering students, over saturation of management colleges and a slowdown in IT industry can be a reason.

Make in India Is Changing The Job Sector in India?

However, we have a theory which is not mentioned in the report; and as per this, PM Modi’s Make in India vision is directly or indirectly driving this massive shift.

We have already reported last year that Make in India directly triggered an increase of 118% of new job creation as 2.75 lakh new jobs were created in the last 6 months of 2014.

When Honda announces a project which is hailed as World’s Largest Scooter Factory with a capacity of 12 lakh units a year in Gujarat; or when Boeing infuses billions of dollars in India under ‘Make in India’ plan, then the whole job sector gets influenced and impacted. Experienced professionals switch their jobs, youngsters come into these industries, and new markets open up.

As per the report from TeamLease, automobile industry was the largest driver of new Blue Collar jobs and as per our estimates, electronics industry can also be a big influencer in this change.

Foxconn alone will employ 10 lakh for their manufacturing hubs in Andhra Pradesh; meanwhile their investment in Maharashtra will enable FDI of $5 billion and 30,000 jobs.

Xiaomi is expanding their manufacturing units in India; Samsung, Sony are aggressively pushing new manufacturing units and electronics industry’s job equation completely shifts. Besides plans like allowing only those foreign companies to sell online in India, those who have a domestic manufacturing unit, is certainly a factor behind the new demand for more Blue Collar jobs across the nation.

Even if India is able to recreate 10-15% of the development which China achieved with large scale, massive push for manufacturing, then we can actually make a big positive change.

Do share your views and opinion on the changing job equations in India, by commenting right here!