India is gearing up to provide a skilled workforce to meet the growing demand in advanced countries facing an ageing population. Ved Mani Tiwari, CEO of the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC), revealed that India will be sending 100,000 care workers abroad every year for the next two years. This follows the success of India’s worker exports, with nearly 20,000 workers sent to Israel last year, 5,000 of them being care workers.

As part of this effort, India is mapping job opportunities in 43 countries, with a focus on sectors like healthcare, social care, renewable energy, IT, and manufacturing. This strategic move aims to ease the migration of skilled workers, providing a solution to countries experiencing a shortage of working-age populations.

In an important development, India recently signed an agreement with Germany, boosting the number of skilled Indian workers allowed into the country from 20,000 to 90,000 visas annually. The NSDC is also ramping up its efforts to partner with educational institutions in Tier-II and Tier-III towns to skill India’s workforce, as many workers reside in these regions.

By January 2025, the NSDC has already skilling 40 million individuals through its ‘skilling, reskilling, upskilling’ initiative, with plans to set up 50,000 skilling centers by the end of 2025. This initiative has not only boosted wages by 20% but also increased employability by 15%, ensuring India continues to be a global leader in providing skilled labor.