McKinsey Global says as many as 800 million jobs could be lost to automation by 2030. Upskilling is a reality we can’t shy away from. It is essential to be relevant and valued in today’s fast-changing business environment, says, Varun Dhamija, Vice President - Pearson Professional Programs, Pearson India.

Losing jobs to automation, how real is this problem?

It’s happening as we speak. World Bank data estimates that 69% of today’s jobs in India are threatened by automation. Different reports suggest that due to the impact of globalisation, demographics and exponential technologies, 9% of the country’s workforce would be deployed in new jobs that do not exist today. This is both an opportunity and a threat and it’s important to bring oneself up to speed to benefit from this change and not risk becoming irrelevant.

It’s good to talk about upskilling but with the increasing workload & life-stage responsibilities how can one upskill?

The answer lies in the BLENDED format of learning. We are drowning every day and if we don’t learn to swim we will sink. The blended format enables working professionals to learn through a unique combination of offline and online learning. It also gives the flexibility of learning anytime, anywhere; thus, giving working professionals the platform to learn while continuing with their jobs. How is Pearson Professional Programs helping working professionals’ skill up?

Pearson is the World’s Learning Company and we bring the complete learning package for today’s working professionals to future-proof their skill-sets. Being a global company, we have partnered with leading international universities who have expertise in these newly evolving skills and domains. We also partner with local industry experts and thought leaders to provide the learner with the right mix of theoretical and practical learning, relevant in the Indian context.

In line with the times, our skill-based programs are aligned with today’s industry needs such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Business Analytics, Machine Learning, Robotics, among others. Global Knowledge, Indian industry First Learnings and Technological Capability for flexible training solutions are our key strengths. This is one of the reasons that to date 73% of our total class of 2017 have moved vertically in their organizations or have found better opportunities. We also have industry best completion rate of 94.31% for our programs.
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