MUMBAI: India’s growth-centric policies, technological prowess and rising affluence places it well in its journey towards becoming one of the world’s leading economies but to leverage the opportunities that India has to offer and realise the country’s growth potential, focus on building “human capital” is essential, said Nitin Paranjpe, chairman at Hindustan Unilever in his address at the company’s 91st AGM on Friday.
India, Paranjpe said, will have to strike a balance between
productivity
and
job creation
to achieve growth going forward. “In any growth model, productivity will always be a key driver but it cannot just be productivity. It will have to be productivity plus creation of jobs. That should be in a position to address the new roles that we need to create to absorb the people who are coming into the working class. The focus just doesn’t have to be on growth but the texture of growth,” Paranjpe told TOI in an interview at the HUL headquarters here.
The way India would derive its growth has to be different from how countries like Japan, South Korea, or parts of Europe would get growth. “They are going to be short of people in the working class and therefore, their growth has to be only productivity-led. We need that balance,” Paranjpe said. A greater focus on sectors that have a high employment elasticity like the services and MSME sectors will be key. “Everything that govt is doing to create more jobs is really what we need,” said Paranjpe.
Projections indicate that the country will need to create 90 million non-farm jobs over the next decade to both manage the migration of labour from agriculture and provide employment opportunities to the people entering the working age population. However, job creation alone will not help, the process needs to be aided by ensuring that the working age population is “employable”. This is where foundational literacy becomes imperative, said Paranjpe.
“As a nation, we have to make sure that the quality of education that we impart to people delivers the outcomes that we want…. it is about building
human capital
which is geared to address the jobs we need to,” Paranjpe said, adding that govt and corporates will need to collaborate to address the challenges in developing human capital.
“Corporates will need to play a key role — be it in ensuring reskilling and upskilling the workforce populace, creating employment, embracing diversity or supporting human development,” Paranjpe said. HUL, the chairman said, has in the last year alone invested 1,00,000 hours on training and upskilling interventions across its offices, factories and sales workforce.
Paranjpe said that he is “quite optimistic” about the growth opportunities that India has for the next decade and beyond. “Much of it is going to come from consumption, new category creation…. It is going to come from premiumisation. All of these are good growth drivers for the economy at large and for companies in the FMCG space as well,” Paranjpe said.
