India's human resource skill deficit fact of the day

A report on India's infrastructure requirements by realty consultant Jones Lang LaSalle for Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) has a glimpse of the formidable challenges facing India's infrastructure sector.

It projects that about 97 million jobs are likely to be created over the 2010-20 period across different sectors in the country. This is estimated to result in the construction of an average of 8.7 billion sq ft of real estate space every year, adding up to a whopping 95 billion sq ft in the ten year period. Its concerns about the deficiency in skilled manpower in construction sector is instructive,

"As of 2011, the supply of professionals in built environment comprises nearly 50 million people, of which only 2 million are professionally qualified (across core and non core professionals). The remaining are mainly unskilled workers. Built environment, comprising construction and real estate related activities... accounts for approximately 17.7% of GDP in 200910.

There is a demand-supply gap in the range of 82-86% in the core professions group comprising civil engineers, architects and planners. To deliver potential real estate space and planned infrastructure, India needs nearly 4 million civil engineers, 396,000 architects and 119,000 planners on an average, over the next decade. However the corresponding average supply available would only be 642,000 civil engineers, 65,000 architects and 18,000 planners.

A sustained period of shortfall in annual supply, coupled with an increasing year on year demand, could result in a cumulative demand of nearly 45 million core professionals, over 2010-20, with a cumulative demand-supply gap of approximately 44 million core professionals over the same period."