Indian employees could contribute $508 billion to GDP with digital upskilling, says study

The study holds that that 21 percent of Indian organizations that run business on the cloud reported a doubling of revenues, while only 9 percent reported such growth without the cloud.

Speaking to CNBC-TV18.com, Amit Mehta, head of training and certification for India and South Asia at AWS said there was a clear cost-saving for companies who invested in cloud tech.

“Companies can save 30 to 40 percent in terms of costs, but the ability and agility to scale up and down, go global and drive innovation is more significant,” he said.

In fact, 93 percent of Indian employers surveyed said they want to fill openings that require digital skills, but nearly 88 percent of the respondents reported challenges in talent scouting.

According to results of the study, while most employers (60 percent) prefer a bachelor’s degree even for entry-level IT employees, 91 percent of the companies surveyed agreed that digital certifications are acceptable substitutes for a bachelor’s degree. The situation is an intriguing contradiction.

“The fact is that the need for a bachelor’s degree is still ingrained in people and organizations still have that need,” said Rohit Kar, Regional Director at Gallup. “A lot of organizations, however are also recognizing the viability of skill development and the certifications that bridge that gap,” he added, “So, we are in the midst of a transitionary phase.”

In 2020, AWS announced that it would train 29 million people in cloud-computing skills for free by 2025. The company has confirmed that 13 million of these individuals have been fully trained so far, including 3 million from India.

According to the AWS and Gallup study, 91 percent of Indian IT employees with advanced digital skills reported high job satisfaction. This was in some contrast to those with intermediate digital skills, only 74 percent of whom reported high job satisfaction.