Beauty, wellness sector creating job avenues for Punjab youth

Varinder Singh

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Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, December 29

Despite burgeoning skill gap, India has emerged as one of the top five beauty and wellness markets in the world. The workforce requirement in this sector is expected to grow from mere 34 lakh in 2013 to 1.21 crore in 2022.

The emerging beauty and wellness sector has a huge potential globally. A recent study by Ernst & Young and a National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) report has indicated that the top five beauty and wellness markets were China, Brazil, the US, India and Indonesia.

“The beauty and wellness sector has been accepted as a key contributor in employment generation. Various courses have been launched under star, non- star and Modular Employable Skill (State Skill Mission). The most favourable government initiative towards entrepreneurship and skill development is that the students are being rewarded through scholarship programmes by the Central government. Secondly, loans for startups are also being disbursed ranging from Rs 50,000 to Rs 10 lakh under various government schemes like Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana. Beauty and wellness sector is also proving to be a boon for youngsters of Punjab who are getting self-employed by adopting it,” said Dinesh Sood, founder and CEO, Orane International Private Limited, which manages a network of 45 beauty and wellness institutes.

The Ministry of Skilling and Entrepreneurship, set up by the Government of India, is working to organise vocational training by designing National Skill Qualification Framework for various sectors, one of which was Beauty & Wellness.

“Based on market interactions, the beauty sector is expected to grow at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 20% with 23% in the organised sector and 15% in the unorganised sector. With shift in focus towards quality of service, the industry has been looking to hire skilled labour to sustain growth,” Dinesh said.

Manish Nagpal, a Jalandhar-based associate of Grace-9, a Dubai-based beauty and wellness chain, said the beauty products and counter sales sector was expected to grow at a CAGR of 20%, with 24% in the organised and 17% in the unorganised sector. He said there was, however, still a huge skill gap in the Indian market. He said the craze for the sector was so much that science and medical background students, too, were joining beauty and wellness courses in Punjab.

Dinesh said, “This sector is a source of a new hope as far as employment of Punjab youngsters is concerned. Various institutes in Punjab train about 10,000 people in beauty and wellness though the requirement from the state is double at around 20,000 per annum. We have already trained 1,800 candidates under ‘Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana’ and as many as 100 under “Hunar Se Rozgar Tak”, a Punjab Tourism Initiative. He claimed his institute had helped 30,000 students coming from lower to middle strata of society in achieving their dream career and earn livelihood.