HISTORY, in the making and in hind¬sight, has a peculiar habit of throwing up surprises to blindside experts, politicians, economists, and the general public. Globalisation, everyone is agreed, is the future. When we talk globalisation, we usually talk about Indian MNCs, we talk growth rates, outsourcing, access to capital, reforms. What we don't often talk about is what globalisation doing to the peoples of the world the labour markets, the demographics, the societies. Continuing integration of markets, says the populations, and creating huge skill gaps. Meanwhile, higher education vacancies in areas like science, technology and research is going a-begging in developed countries. In the UK, the government has mounted a huge campaign to entice its youth back to the 'hard' stuff.
India - but not China - has 54 % of its population under the age of 2 5. At the same time, ask any HR manager, trained talent is not as easy to come by as people would think, especially globally competitive managerial talent. As the pressure on India's higher education ( institutes is crushing and ensuring that these young people have skills enough to stay ahead of the rest of the world is getting harder and harder.
World Bank, will make jobs around the world more subject to competitive pressures. "As trade expands and technologies diffuse to developing countries, unskilled workers as well as some lower skilled white collar workers will face increasing competition across borders. Rather than trying to preserve existing jobs, governments need to support dislocated workers and provide them key opportunities. Improving education and labour market flexibility is a key part of the long term solution," says Uri Dadush, director of the World Bank's Development Prospects group in - the bank's latest economic prospect report. At the same time, a recent global UK government and EIU survey of global CEOs has the lack of adequate talent as the single biggest problem facing the world, both in developing and developed countries.
Now consider this: The world, especially the developing world, is ageing. Public pension plans in some countries, especially in Europe which leads the ageing population league tables, has created incentives for older workers to retire, this exacerbating the financial problems of ageing we were talking, say, steel, the answer is obvious. Get the raw material from India or Brazil as the case may be, add value in Rotherham or wherever, and then export it to the rest of the world, from Canada to New Zealand. But the voices that argue for open borders and free movement of labour and skills are still few and far between. As one side-effect of globalisation, protectionism - against outsourcing, against migration is rising across the world. The integration of the EU has seen one of the largest cross-border east to west migrations in recent history, which is not making things any easier for either the host or sender countries.
Many years ago, we called it a brain drain. Then we discovered the value of an overseas diaspora, At one time, population was India's biggest problem. Now we flaunt it as our biggest strength. Today, India's unique selling point in the global marketplace is its youth demographic. Add to that students are generally more welcome in almost all countries (as long as they pay) than, say, software engineers or doctors who compete for local jobs. The US took in almost 600,000 students last year, the UK took in about 20,000. Vijaya Khandavilli, country coordinator, educational advising services of the US Educational Foundation in India (USEFI) feels that Indian parents have always gone an extra mile to provide the best of overseas education to their children. "This is in keeping with the national character and now with double in- come parents and availability of education loans more and more Indian parents are opting for education overseas. Indian students form the largest foreign group of students in US classrooms, obviously their global employability quotient increases considerably.
India - but not China - has 54 % of its population under the age of 2 5. At the same time, ask any HR manager, trained talent is not as easy to come by as people would think, especially globally competitive managerial talent. As the pressure on India's higher education ( institutes is crushing and ensuring that these young people have skills enough to stay ahead of the rest of the world is getting harder and harder.
World Bank, will make jobs around the world more subject to competitive pressures. "As trade expands and technologies diffuse to developing countries, unskilled workers as well as some lower skilled white collar workers will face increasing competition across borders. Rather than trying to preserve existing jobs, governments need to support dislocated workers and provide them key opportunities. Improving education and labour market flexibility is a key part of the long term solution," says Uri Dadush, director of the World Bank's Development Prospects group in - the bank's latest economic prospect report. At the same time, a recent global UK government and EIU survey of global CEOs has the lack of adequate talent as the single biggest problem facing the world, both in developing and developed countries.
Now consider this: The world, especially the developing world, is ageing. Public pension plans in some countries, especially in Europe which leads the ageing population league tables, has created incentives for older workers to retire, this exacerbating the financial problems of ageing we were talking, say, steel, the answer is obvious. Get the raw material from India or Brazil as the case may be, add value in Rotherham or wherever, and then export it to the rest of the world, from Canada to New Zealand. But the voices that argue for open borders and free movement of labour and skills are still few and far between. As one side-effect of globalisation, protectionism - against outsourcing, against migration is rising across the world. The integration of the EU has seen one of the largest cross-border east to west migrations in recent history, which is not making things any easier for either the host or sender countries.
Many years ago, we called it a brain drain. Then we discovered the value of an overseas diaspora, At one time, population was India's biggest problem. Now we flaunt it as our biggest strength. Today, India's unique selling point in the global marketplace is its youth demographic. Add to that students are generally more welcome in almost all countries (as long as they pay) than, say, software engineers or doctors who compete for local jobs. The US took in almost 600,000 students last year, the UK took in about 20,000. Vijaya Khandavilli, country coordinator, educational advising services of the US Educational Foundation in India (USEFI) feels that Indian parents have always gone an extra mile to provide the best of overseas education to their children. "This is in keeping with the national character and now with double in- come parents and availability of education loans more and more Indian parents are opting for education overseas. Indian students form the largest foreign group of students in US classrooms, obviously their global employability quotient increases considerably.
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