Are we gearing up for 47 lakh additional telecom jobs by 2021-22?

Telecom Minister Manoj Sinha recently said that the telecom sector requires over 47 lakh additional skilled manpower by 2021-22. Just to reiterate, he said: “An additional skilled manpower requirement to the tune of 47,75,500 from the present strength of 40,04,500 is estimated in telecom sector till the end of financial year 2021-22, meaning thereby an increase of 119.25 per cent over the present strength in a period of five financial years."

It opens up huge opportunities for the telecom job market and pushes us to upskill with the changing times. At present, the industry is cribbing about getting the right skillset for telecom and imparting the right skill sets is the key to do anything big and different.

Today, skills are required across the value chain. On the manufacturing side, or the services side we need to improve and update the skill level in a big way.

We also need skills on the networking, the core technology side so that skills could be developed for telecom network, maintenance, installation, operations. As we go for newer technologies for example 4G, 5G, automation, etc, we would need to build the skill levels for that.

On the retail side, also on the service side, a lot of service opportunities are there in the telecom sector, there also a different kind of skilling is required that is more to do with marketing, soft skills, being able to talk to the consumers.

Currently, the only challenge is that we need to re-skill in some of these areas so that we can emerge as the global leader with the advent of latest technologies such as IoT, artificial intelligence, etc.

Keeping in mind the urgent requirement for right skill sets, Voice& Data in association with Telecom Sector Skill Council is organizing “Telecom Manthan”, a meeting of Telecom Ecosystem & Talent pool in India, on May 16th in New Delhi.

The conference would bring the Telecom industry, Livelihood seekers, Academia, Training Partners and Government under one roof to deliberate on issues such as:

• Challenges and Opportunities

• Emerging New Technologies

• The path forward in the Telecom space for Academia and students

• A perception of new opportunities, and the required skills for new job roles that are likely to emerge.

Some of th