India faced an acute talent demand-supply gap of 28 percent in 2021 for jobs in new-age technologies amid the demand for nearly 1.5 lakh jobs in areas like 5G, Cloud computing, AI/Big Data analytics, IoT, mobile app development, and robotic process automation, a new report showed on Wednesday.

The talent demand-supply gap will continue to widen with the advent of 5G and allied technologies rollout, according to the report by the Telecom Sector Skill Council (TSSC), as Prime Minister Narendra Modi dedicated an indigenous 5G Test Bed, in the form of 5Gi, to the nation on Tuesday.

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“A deeper look at the technological changes, along with proper skilling, will prepare the workforce of the future. We hope to address policy issues like low penetration of broadband and the industry needs to proliferate at a CAGR of 30-40 percent in order to create a phenomenal number of jobs,” said K. Rajaraman, Secretary, Department of Telecommunication (DoT).

“TSSC should put in place a set of occupational categories such as rural broadband technician which can support the development of BharatNet in rural areas,” he emphasized during the launch of the report.

The telecom council plans to train 1 lakh people in the next three years and open 10 new Centres of Excellence across the country.

“With original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) setting shop in India, they will need a plethora of job roles to set up their supply chain. We aim to aid the ecosystem with a world-class skilled workforce for 5G and its allied technologies,” said Arvind Bali, CEO, TSSC.

TSSC President Akhil Gupta (Vice Chairman, Bharti Group) said that they now plan to accelerate skilling initiatives to international regions and map the international workforce demand.

“It is important to train the workforce to use these new technologies in a much more effective fashion. When we talk about jobs in the telecom sector, we should not talk about only the jobs here but how they need some kind of upskilling,” added Rajesh Aggarwal, Secretary, Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship.