A Fourth Of Retail Jobs Will Require New Skills By 2022

Almost 20-25 percent of the workforce in the retail sector would be deployed in jobs that have radically changed skill set requirements in the next five years.

Ninety-five percent of industry experts believed that creation of highly optimised supply chains would drive growth in retail in the next five years, according to a joint report by Ficci-Nasscom and EY. More than 76 percent of the industry experts believe that rising middle-class and business innovation would drive growth in the sector, it said.

“The e-commerce companies are creating new job profiles in logistics, warehousing, web and app design, system integration, customer service, big data and machine learning. Hence, the need is to acquire new skill set through training, learning and development, adopt technology and be market ready for the changing job roles in the retail sector,” he added.

These include topics like the level of Indian exports, rapid adoption of technologies in the advanced markets and its impact on off-shoring, the changes in the overseas job market for Indian workforce and the level of foreign investments, among others.

It also stressed on the demand for a resourceful planet and sustainability, and under demographic changes, it cited increasing urbanisation, and the rise in middle-class, as well as a higher proportion of young population.

The potential new job roles that the retail industry respondents have listed are retail data analyst, digital imaging leader, IT process modeller, digital marketing specialist and customer experience leader.

Some of the threatened jobs in the sector are cashier, inventory associate, sales representative and stock boy. The maximum impact of adoption of technology on jobs will be felt in warehouse management, the report noted. The report noted that 90 percent of the respondents believe that collaboration with other industry partners for creation of a larger ecosystem and making changes in existing processes are key initiatives by industry players.

Further, re-skilling of employees was rated as a key initiative by 71 percent of the industry players.