Demand for software engineers in the manufacturing sector to rise

By Apeksha Kaushik, TimesJobs.com Bureau

With an added push from the ' Make in India' campaign, the manufacturing and its sub sectors will need approximately 97 million skilled workers by 2022. Among these, Software Engineers will be most sought-after. There will be plenty of jobs for the skilled candidates

The Manufacturing & Engineering industry employs approximately four million skilled and semi-skilled workers and accounts for 27 per cent of the total factories in the industrial sector. Engineers account for nearly 45 per cent of the total demand in the sector, across functions. Within engineering, nearly 28 per cent of the total demand is for software engineers, according to the TimesJobs.com data.

Skills to succeed

The Manufacturing sector is primarily focusing on job functions which would enable them to build a strong edge in the highly competitive market.

1. Engineering specialists are in focus for their ability to create a robust product innovation and engineering team
2. Techno-commercial professionals, who are engineering graduates armed with a strong flair for sales and marketing, will also be in demand

Going forward, recruitment is set to fire-up these job profiles considering the highly competitive business landscape that manufacturing and engineering verticals thrive in.

Beyond domain knowledge

The new growth trajectory will result in need for skills, other than just domain competency. Pro-activeness and understanding the market competition will be an important skill for success in the Manufacturing sector, feels Amitabh Akhauri, Sr VP-HR, Jindal Stainless Ltd.

Market intelligence and analysing data will be other new skills required to remain competitive in the industry. Indian players have to develop better strategy to understand their customers and the changing patterns, to remain competitive against China.

Growth scenario

An analysis of the skill gap across various *sub sectors in the Manufacturing sector indicates that the sector will need approximately **97 million skilled workers by 2022. For the plan period 2013-2017, the demand for skilled workers in the sector will increase from 60 million to 74.86 million, said Dilip Chenoy, MD & CEO, NSDC ( National Skill Development Corporation).

With Modi's maiden budget giving a strong impetus to the Manufacturing and Engineering industry and the launch of the 'Make in India' campaign, this vertical is set to revive itself in the coming quarters. The positive sentiments in the Manufacturing sector will be extended to other key product-driven sectors as well, in the coming months, added Chenoy. With an average growth of 2 per cent in the last six months (Jul-Dec 2014, Timesjobs report), at par with the overall industry average for the period, the sector will be one of the biggest employment generators in 2015.

(*The sub-sectors include Textiles, Food processing, Auto and Auto Components, Leather and Leather goods, Gems and Jewellery, Construction Material and Building Hardware, Electronics, Pharmaceutical and Chemicals and Furniture.)

(** Source: NSDC's sector-wise skills gap reports 2013)