Today, there is a great shortage in Europe and Japan of people who can write algorithms for quantum computers, build infrastructure or work in healthcare. ‘The biggest challenge for Europe’s largest economy will be growth constraints due to a workforce shortage,’ said Robert Habeck, Germany’s Federal Minister for Economic Affairs, recently. (C R Sasikumar)
There won’t be any “brain drain” when 997 youth from across Maharashtra, with only high school certificates, begin their jobs in Israel at a monthly salary of Rs 1.37 lakh. It will be circular migration, resulting in skill gain for both Israel and India. This move is part of the labour mobility agreements which Prime Minister Narendra Modi has crafted with countries like Germany, Japan and Israel.
Permanent migration from India of highly-qualified doctors and engineers is, indeed, brain drain. Until 2000, most doctors and engineers who eventually settled abroad had studied in highly subsidised institutions funded by Indian taxpayers. Their remittances were large, but dwindled as they settled down permanently in the destination countries. Moreover, the total remittances originating from high-income individuals from the US, the UK, Canada and Australia amount to only 32 per cent of the inward remittances to India. On the other hand, manual workers in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and Oman contribute 40 per cent of the total remittances to India.
Human migration across centuries has shaped cultures in several parts of the world. Following the discovery of the Americas and Australia in the Age of Exploration, and in the absence of immigration and border controls, people from Europe quickly populated these lands. Thanks to the vast resources available there, Europe was able to escape poverty. Even Imperial China, which was heavily populated in the eastern mainland, expanded westwards to the vast empty lands of the Gobi desert and the Tian Shan mountains and beyond. India, on the other hand, was hemmed in by the Himalayas in the north and the ocean in the south, and our civilisation evolved by welcoming outsiders rather than colonising other lands.
Today, mass migration of this kind is not possible due to border controls. The migration of a few thousand highly qualified people from India to the developed North is only a small fraction of the 12 million people who join the workforce every year. It makes no dent in the job market or poverty in India.
The Economist magazine, quoting Charles Goodhart, Manoj Pradhan and Pratyancha Pardeshi, has surmised that the ageing population in Western Europe and Japan can incentivise the flow of skilled workers and caregivers from the developing world. The ageing demography of the developed world has created the greatest opportunity for India to enhance the quality of life of many Indians in a single generation. Today, there is a great shortage in Europe and Japan of people who can write algorithms for quantum computers, build infrastructure or work in healthcare. “The biggest challenge for Europe’s largest economy will be growth constraints due to a workforce shortage,” said Robert Habeck, Germany’s Federal Minister for Economic Affairs, recently. Circular migration is a win-win solution, with government-to-government agreements to safeguard the wages and social security of migrant workers in destination countries and their guaranteed return.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has followed up his global outreach with bilateral agreements with non-Anglophone countries like Germany, Israel and Japan to meet skill deficits. Israel has a demand for over 100,000 skilled masons, carpenters and home based-carers, who will be given an assured monthly salary of Rs 1.3 lakh and accommodation and social security by the employers.
Even though India has the requisite numbers, fulfilling the global skills gap is not an easy proposition. Language barriers are a major challenge. G-to-G agreements for circular migration require exact skill-matching and many legal compliances. These include acquiring a passport and the ability to demonstrate skills in a format required by the receiving country.
The National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) has aggregated the skill gap demand for many of India’s partner countries. The Maharashtra Institution for Transformation ( MITRA ) worked closely with the NSDC, under the Union Ministry of Skill Development (MSD) and the Maharashtra state departments of Labour and Employment, Skills and Entrepreneurship over the last three months to evolve SOPs and policy norms so that skilled youth could access higher wage markets.
For example, it was a challenge to identify, at scale, youth with the exact required skills, who were willing to work in Israel. Selection and placement in Israel is based on physical tests as per protocols. Though Indian workers may have the requisite skills, they may not be able to demonstrate them in the pre-defined manner with the use of specific tools. Hence, they need booster training. The NSDC has developed a four-day course on Recognition of Prior Learning ( RPL) to upgrade the existing skills.
MITRA and State Skill Development Young Professionals worked with a call centre to update the data of nearly two lakh construction workers in the trades of plastering, ceramic tiling, formwork and bar bending registered with the Maharashtra Building and Other Construction Workers Welfare Board. Nearly 2,500 willing workers were shortlisted and a pre-selection test was organised. Thereafter, 24 ITIs were identified and willing workers were asked to participate in a booster training in English and construction skills . This gave them a competitive edge in the tests conducted by the Israel Builders Association. Where many candidates did not have passports, the Ministry of External Affairs and regional passport officers of Mumbai, Pune and Nagpur fast-tracked the issuance of passports, even giving interview dates on holidays to clear the new applicants. CSR funding was organised by Nagpur’s Collector for candidates who could not pay their passport application fees.
Then came the challenge of setting up testing facilities exactly as per the protocol prescribed by Israel. ITI Pune took up the challenge. However one hurdle came up: Bar bending required a specific machine which was not used in India. Experts at the ITI fabricated the 12 bar bending testing machines which matched the Israeli requirements. Finally 997 candidates were selected by the Israeli team after a rigorous four-day testing process.
As this is part of a circular migration agreement, these workers will come back to India after five years. But they will bring back enhanced experience of working with sophisticated construction machinery and advanced management protocols, which will benefit the Indian construction industry.
MITRA is working with the Maharashtra Skills, Labour and Medical Education departments to create a dynamic database of willing youth with specific skills that match the needs of partner countries like Israel, Japan and Germany. The NSDC is partnering with the Maharashtra Skill Department to ensure that these youth get refresher training. The state government has also decided to provide them the opportunity to learn Japanese, German or French.
Ultimately, as artificial, non-economic barriers to the free movement of workers, created in the 19th and 20th century, collapse, driven by skill deficits in parts of the world with ageing populations, India should position itself to become the global source of human capital. Circular migration will ensure that the movement takes place at scale and that India also gains from the experience of returning workers.
The writer is CEO, MITRA
© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd
First uploaded on: 05-10-2024 at 01:40 IST
