British telecom major Vodafone has launched a global job programme to provide career guidance and access to training content in digital economy for up to 10 million young people across 18 countries by 2022.
Under the programme — ‘What will you be?’ — the company intends to train nearly 5 million, or half of the total, in India.
The digital skills and jobs initiative is the largest of its kind in the world, the company said in a statement.
Digital India
“India has one of the youngest populations in the world. The vision of Digital India, to which we are all committed, requires an abundance of digital skills and new learnings. Over time, every workplace will go digital, creating new roles and accelerating the demand for a wide range of specialist technology skills relevant for a digital economy,” said Sunil Sood, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Vodafone India.
“With this programme, we want to prepare 5 million young people across India to be future-fit for workplaces of the new world,” he added.
Job finder
As part of the initiative, Vodafone has developed an online platform — Future Jobs Finder — to help youth for career guidance, access to relevant trainings and search jobs.
The platform also conducts psychometric tests to identify each applicant’s aptitude and interest, and map them to the appropriate job.
Further, the individual is directed to specific job opportunities in their chosen location. Users can also access several online courses on this platform free-of-cost.
Modern jobs
According to a study commissioned by Vodafone, the top appealing jobs were YouTube Blogger (26 per cent), Internet of Things Product Designer (18 per cent), Cyber Security Specialist (17 per cent) and Robotics Engineer (15 per cent).
While more than half of the youth surveyed preferred modern jobs over traditional jobs, young women also favoured modern jobs as men.
Almost one in five young people feel under-prepared for the digital economy, while more than half said the hardest challenge for their generation is finding a well-paid, permanent job.