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Indian pharm scouts for qualified tech-intensive workforce to function in fully automated environment
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Nandita Vijay, Bengaluru
September 04 , 2021
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Indian pharma needs qualified tech-intensive and industry ready high-quality workforce to build up capability in production and research. This is in the wake of the financial assistance coming in through schemes like productivity linked incentive for large scale companies. The industry also sees the need to focus on innovation to move up the value chain from generics to advanced medicines and drug delivery devices. The increase in private equity funding has also led to diversification of operations requiring technology groomed domain expert candidates.
The pandemic has pushed the pharma industry to innovate and remain robust. The global and national lockdowns led to remote monitoring of production plant operations 24/7, detect and rectify equipment problems, reduce downtime, and make smarter decisions. All these lead to scout for workforce armed with tech-intensive skills.
Similarly, healthcare services are no longer limited to the vicinity of the hospitals and specialty clinics as technology has enabled immediate care access. This has seen a demand for healthcare professionals and related skilled support staff. This led to hiring technology domain experts across healthcare sector.
According to Dr Naresh Shetty, president, Quess Healthcare, there are challenges with an acute shortage of skilled manpower to the tune of six million paramedics today. We hope to bridge this gap to accelerate skill development and knowledge enhancement, which is the absolute need of the hour. Through tech-enabled skilling and access to a talent pool of trained professionals, we want to empower healthcare providers to cater to a wider public reach.
“We have seen a drastic hiring surge, across temporary and permanent profiles due to the pandemic. The demand has largely been for factory-led roles in manufacturing and production domains as well as on assembly and packaging lines. This is not surprising, considering India’s status as the pharmacy of the world, which produces 20% generic drugs and 60% of the vaccines globally,” Sumit Kumar, vice president & business head, NETAP, TeamLease Skills University told Pharmabiz.
Not only this, but companies have also increasingly hired pharma apprentices with skills and expertise to meet this sudden spike in demand and requirements of the sector. In fact, there was a 44% increase in pharma apprentice hiring in the month of May as compared to April. Even in the months of June and July, hiring continued to positively increase. Pharmaceutical apprentices have stepped in to fill this void and provided their support in time of utmost need, he added.
Much of this spike in hiring has been seen across multiple locations like Tier 1 and Tier 2 locations. Moreover, opportunities for apprentices for lab roles such as phlebotomists and lab technicians have spiked up since the spike in Covid testing and vaccination drives pan-India. To complete vaccinations across states and keeping in mind the pandemic curve, demand for healthcare apprentices is expected to further increase in the coming quarters, said Kumar.
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