India to supply 100,000 care workers annually to global labour market

NEW DELHI Feb 13: India is set to supply 100,000 care workers annually to the global labour market for the next two years as it prepares to provide a skilled workforce to advanced countries seeing a decline in their working-age population due to ageing, said Ved Mani Tiwari, chief executive officer (CEO) of the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) on Thursday.

“Last year alone, India supplied nearly 20,000 workers to Israel, of whom 5,000 were care workers. India is rapidly forming pathways to allow greater mobility of its skilled workforce to countries in need. As part of this, it is expected that India will provide nearly 100,000 care workers every year to the world,” he said while addressing a media interaction.

India is also undertaking skill-mapping exercises across various countries to help Indians gain a better understanding of global labour markets.

“As of now, we have mapped 43 countries. A detailed analysis is being prepared for each economy, covering the types of jobs available and the documentation required. It has been observed that Indian workers are in high demand in sectors such as healthcare, social care, renewable energy, manufacturing, and information technology,” he added.

Recently, India signed an agreement with Germany under the Group of Twenty skills-based migration pathways framework, increasing the number of visas for skilled Indians to 90,000 per year, up from 20,000 earlier.

The NSDC is also placing a ‘special’ focus on partnering educational institutions in Tier-II and Tier-III towns, as a large portion of the country’s workforce resides there.

“With the use of technology and digitisation, every effort is being made to partner students in these areas and bring them on board. They will be skilled appropriately, keeping industry demand in mind,” he said.

Tiwari further highlighted that the NSDC has skilled nearly 40 million people as of January 2025 as part of its ‘skilling, reskilling, upskilling’ initiative. Moreover, 50,000 skilling centres are expected to be set up by the end of 2025.

“Of these 40 million people, one-fourth were new trainees, while the rest included those already working who required additional skills. In our assessment, we found that once enrolled in skilling programmes, participants were able to increase their wages by 20 per cent, while their employability improved by 15 per cent,” he added.