IBM chief Ginni Rometty says Indians lack skillsets to be employed

Global tech major IBM chief Ginni Rometty has said Indians lack required skillsets even as new-age jobs galore, and exhorted all to look at education beyond obtaining/giving away degrees.

USD 180-billion domestic software industry directly employs over 4 million.

In remarks that come amid similar concerns voiced by or tech leers domestically, Rometty, chairman, president and chief executive of IBM, said this is a global problem and not just limited to Indian shores.

"In India, you have same issues. Open jobs, (but) no matching skillsets," she said, speaking at a company conference in Mumbai on Wednesday.

"You have got to believe in a few different things than I think you believed in past. One is to believe that skills are perhaps more important than a degree," Rometty said, amid reports of huge unemployment among qualified engineers who when employed at entry level are paid much lower than those semi-skilled with experience.

re have been reports that nearly three-fourths of millions of engineers and B-school gruates are not simply not employable at all, speaking volumes about quality of both acemics as well as mission process in country's education systems.

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According to private economic think tank CMIE data, as of February, re were as many as 31.2 million youth actively looking for jobs. This is in a country where over 60 percent of 1.35 billion population are under 35.

"It can be that you can have folks with less than a university degree, but participate well in this industry," Rometty said.

Contrary to perceptions of jobs being in short supply, she said re are jobs aplenty and an equivalent number of people looking for m, but skillsets are not matching, which is real problem.

She said businesses and governments have to work toger to solve issue at hand, underlining that we cannot have a world of haves and have-nots in this new world where certain people know how to work in new technology-led era and vast majority of ors do not.

Posing a question on wher tech will kill jobs, she said nature of jobs will undergo a change and also spoke about her company's social sector projects, especially those aimed at educating women.

Two years ago, he of a leing European tech player h alluded to similar concerns as Rometty.

He h said over 65 percent of Indian IT staff is "just not re-trainable", and h taken potshots at Indian education system also he blamed tech companies for not doing enough.

"For some unknown reasons, we call it a knowledge-driven industry. If you have that kind of talent, and n making m learn existing technology itself is such a huge challenge," he h wondered. 

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