MAGAZINE Voices Anand Neelakantan Sheila Kumar Devdutt Pattanaik Preeti Shenoy Dinesh Singh Mata Amritanandamayi Buffet People Wellness Books Food Art & Culture Entertainment NEW DELHI February 2 2025 SUNDAY PAGES 12 The New-collar Revolution The new-world job market has begun to prioritise skills over college degrees, creating an emerging breed of employees joining the workforce the high demand for skilled professionals across various industries like e-commerce and fintech, where top software development programme graduates are being hired for an average `48 lakh a year.” Senior developers and data scientists are in high demand, getting average annual salaries of `32.04 lakh and `20.28 lakh. The Indian tech industry, employing over 5.4 million people, is grappling with a widening digital talent gap, according to the India Tech Industry Digital Talent Demand and Supply Analysis 2023 by Nasscom. While digital roles currently make up 36-38 per cent of the workforce, jobs in AI, Big Data Analytics, and IoT have huge demand. But the supply of experts is below 50 per cent. This gap is expected to widen, since the demand for digital talent is projected to grow to six million by 2028. As a result, the supply gap could widen from the current 25 per cent to 28-29 per cent. The influx of freshers into the industry is expected to help, but re-skilling and upskilling initiatives will need to fill the lacuna. The Nasscom report By Mamta Sharma M adhuri Kukreja spent two and a half years working at a financial services company as an entry level analyst. It was monotonous work. Besides, she was consumed by anxiety about artificial intelligence (AI) taking her job: the prevalent fear among workers worldwide. Kukreja decided to move towards a career in tech where job security was better and her enthusiasm about data science—though by no means an expert— would come useful because of her interest. Upskilling—the process of teaching an employee new skills— wasn’t easy at first. During the first three months, Kukreja chose to teach herself taking online courses on coding. Due to lack of prior experience and insufficient knowledge of coding tools, she couldn’t get the results she was hoping for. Her solution was to enrol in an upskilling programme with Scaler, an edtech company which offers skill training and development programmes. The structured curriculum equipped her to earn the necessary technical skills to be a data scientist. Enter the New-collar Worker. A new industry trend, it is upending known employment notions. The new-collar philosophy prioritises skills over college degrees. For example, a biology graduate who is as good at coding as a White Hat, could be hired for a software development role by IBM. The popular sectors offering new-collar jobs are in tech: big data, cybersecurity, generative AI, coding, machine learning and meditech. New-collars started as blue-collar workers who lost jobs in the pandemic while whitecollar workers kept their jobs and perks, working remotely and safely in their homes. To survive they learned new skills to get better jobs. An unexpected consequence of this is the shrinking of the labour market although blue-collar workers are the heart of the global manufacturing economy. Blue-collar jobs drive 70 per cent of India’s new job growth according to McKinsey & Company. The growing gap between demand for jobs and availability of workers is a problem companies will have to solve, or adapt to. According to a Foundit report, major companies like Accenture and IBM have already shifted away from hiring based on formal degrees. IBM requires only 29 per cent of their positions to have a formal qualification, while Accenture’s figure is 43 per cent. India’s IT sector is nowhere near, but the new-collar trend has started, albeit slowly: seven per cent of fresh non-tech engineering graduates have got jobs in engineering firms. The rising trend of new-collar jobs, a term coined by IBM’s former CEO Ginni Rometty is taking the corporate world by storm. The vote is for certifications, vocational training, internships and apprenticeships. Kukreja believes the training she received “at Scaler not only made the concepts easier to understand, but also gave me the confidence to get my dream job as an Associate Analyst at Razorpay. Upskilling taught me that technical skills are not difficult to learn. I realised that small, consistent improvements—even just one per cent every day—can lead to significant change over time. This mindset helped me excel in the course that involved data analysis, machine learning and deep learning among other valuable skills. It instilled in me a sense of discipline and realise the importance of continuous improvement in learning and my career”. Aparna K, Quantitative Analyst at Paypal, who began her professional journey in a service-based MNC as a software developer, would agree. Over her three-year-tenure, she observed the rapid rise of emerging fields like AI, Blockchain, and others that were reshaping the industry. This inspired her to upskill. “I wanted to align my choice with both my existing skill set and personal interests. I found that Data Science and Business Analytics were exactly what I was looking for,” she says. She enrolled in a weekend online course with Great Learning. “I made the tough decision to leave my job and prepare for interviews. My goal was to join a startup, where I could learn and grow through hands-on experience and new challenges every day. Things fell into place, and I secured a role at Mathco, a company that helped me explore various technologies and business domains,” she says. After three years at Mathco, she recently joined PayPal. Scaler works with over 1,000 organisations, including Microsoft, Amazon, Adobe, Ola, Flipkart, Uber, and Cure. Fit, etc., as their tech recruiter, providing learners with placement opportunities in top tech companies. It has secured jobs for 96 per cent of students in their software development upskill course at Scaler Academy and 83 per cent of learners in the DSML (Data Science and Machine Learning) programme. Abhimanyu Saxena, Co-founder of Scaler and InterviewBit, says, “Learners from Scaler Academy got a median salary hike of 150 per cent. It was 110 per cent for students of DSML programmes. These figures reflect 1990 ● The birth of blue-collar workers ● Synonymous with industrial and Code Decode manual workers ● Did not require college degree ● Mostly paid by the hour ● Generally lower paid ● The rise of ● The pandemic technology evolved ● Automation and software firms became big ● Silicon Valley became the Dreamland white-collar workers ● It rose out of the need for management and administrative employees for emerging companies ● Intellectual labour was the hallmark ● Higher payscale 1935 2022 ● With a new era dawning, changed the office scene ● Gig-economy emerged ● Hybrid was the calling card ● Startups changed the game ● Data science, AI, cloud computing were the need of the hour ● Skills were given importance over degrees and experience 2016 What’s Fuelling the Rise The demand for new-collar jobs is being driven by the rapidly changing skill landscape, as highlighted by the World Economic Forum (WEF) Future of Jobs Report 2025. On average, 39 per cent of the existing skills of workers will become obsolete or transformed over 2025-2030. In fact, 59 out of 100 workers globally will require training by 2030 to keep pace with evolving job demands. Technological advancements, particularly in AI and big data, are vanguards of this trend. Alongside technical skills, employers value creative thinking, resilience, flexibility, and a commitment to lifelong learning. These complementary skills are vital for employees to adapt to the fast-paced changes happening in the workplace. Mandar Chavan, a Business Analyst at Quantum Phinance, says, “Choosing to upskill was a pivotal moment in my career. After completing my BSc in Biotechnology, I realised that the job market wasn’t as promising as I had hoped. My initial struggle with the CAT exam pushed me to explore data science. What drew me to this field was my fascination with how platforms like Google Maps create year-end dashboards.” Due to his non-engineering background, he faced numerous challenges, including mastering SQL and Python. “Ultimately, the investment paid off. The transition was not easy, but my passion for data and a supportive network made all the difference,” he says. According to the WEF report, 170 million new jobs will emerge by 2030, driven by technological advancements, green energy , and demographic shifts; AI specialists, data analysts, and fintech engineers, will account for 14 per cent of the current workforce losing their livelihood. Vivek Prakash, Head of the Combat Systems department, L&T, witnessed firsthand throughout his 21 years of service in the Indian Navy how critical data analysis is used for enhancing operational efficiency and safety. “I realised that data-driven decision-making was the future. It sparked my journey into upskilling, and I decided to take the leap. The skills I developed during the programme allowed me to approach problems with a data-driven mindset, which proved invaluable during the interview process and beyond. This ultimately led to my hiring,” he says. Generative AI businesses are both hiring new talent and retraining their current employees. As highlighted by Coursera data, the demand for AI training has surged globally, with India and the US leading the charge in enrolment numbers, reinforcing the critical role of skills development. According to Sanketh Chengappa KG, Director of Professional Staffing at Adecco, a HR solutions company, firms are shifting their hiring strategies by investing in AI and data-driven hiring tools, besides hiring people from other countries for remote working. Local talent is being developed simultaneously. Apprenticeship and internship programmes are based on competency of Turn to page 2 The Worldwide Worker Web 1920s emphasises that companies will have to move to being ‘Skill-Based Organisations’, where employee skills is the mantra to get ahead and for the businesses to retain workers. Solutions are needed to close the digital talent gap: adopt innovative talent-sourcing methods and collaborate with the government, educational institutions, and skills councils. The Global Skills Gaps Measurement and Monitoring Report of ILO 2023 says that 47 per cent of Indian workers, especially 62 per cent of women are under-qualified for their jobs. Sana, a pharmacy graduate, struggled to find a suitable job in healthcare. Omega Healthcare’s skillsfocused training programmes came to her rescue. She underwent a comprehensive skills analysis and received targeted training in IPDRG, Surgery, and Anaesthesia coding. Today, She is a medical coder.