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Pharma cos ramp up apprentice hiring as workforce pipeline to spur productivity and cost-effectiveness
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Nandita Vijay, Bengaluru
March 19 , 2021
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Pharmaceutical companies are keen on hiring apprentices taking advantage of the Union government’s Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY) 3.0, a skill development initiative scheme to bridge gap between unemployed youth and employment opportunities.
The pandemic lockdown saw the workforce relocating to hometowns and reluctant to return. For employers, the shutdown resulted in loss of work days which in turn impacted workforce severely.
According to K Ratna Prabha, chairperson, Karnataka Skill Development Authority, the government intends to update the skill development training to ensure youths are suitably employed. It can also allow companies to access industry-ready candidates. Training and upskilling, enables multitasking, making them handymen capable of doing multiple jobs at any industry.
In pharma, the job avenues for apprentices are mostly at production plants, finance, quality assurance, supply chain, quality control, warehousing and distribution.
Yeshab Giri, director, Staffing, Randstad Technologies noted apprentices are being hired as the industry is facing a scarcity of workforce and there is also a cost aspect to it. Apprentices are picked up by the industry for a fixed period during which they garner the required skills. Besides learning on the job, they enable the organization to allocate manpower better. These candidates, fresh out of technical institutes like ITI among others, could actually become a workforce pipeline for companies. We see many companies as part of their corporate social responsibility take upskilling freshers, even if they are do not hire them. They are trained on sector specific skills allowing them to seek employment elsewhere.
Apprentices are placed at the bottom of the pyramid, where they learn, allowing companies to redirect some of the existing staff to more productive jobs. Therefore, hiring apprentices enables delegation of manpower. When apprentices are hired and deployed on the shopfloor, companies have an option to place them for long term employment because they have picked up the skills. Sectors like pharmaceuticals and healthcare employ apprentices in a big way. Even in pharmacy retail and e: commerce, the trend of hiring apprentices is prevalent now, Giri told Pharmabiz.
According to Sumit Kumar, vice president, NETAP (National Employability through Apprenticeship Program), TeamLease Skill University, “Apprentice hiring is on a positive trajectory in the last couple of years as more employers are realizing the merit of this model to build a robust pipeline of talent. In fact, from 2018 to now, we have seen a 2.5% y-o-y increase in employers who are willing to increase their apprentice intake. This has happened despite the dip in the labor market during the Covid-19 lockdown.
Our latest edition of Apprenticeship Outlook Report for H1 2021 noted there is buoyancy towards the concept of apprenticeship as employers augment their hiring which indicated a positive momentum in apprenticeship eco-system.
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