On the occasion of the fourth ?World Youth Skills Day? on July 15, 2018, LabourNet, one of India?s leading social enterprises in skill development and enabling sustainable livelihoods, announced its future plans to further expand its focus on skilling youth in Karnataka. LabourNet has been skilling youth and providing them opportunities for wage employment and self-employment through creation of micro enterprises.  Speaking about the initiative, Dr. Gayathri Vasudevan, Co- Founder and CEO, LabourNet, said, ?Youth skill development is the need of the hour to ensure that today?s youth of Karnataka do not remain unemployed or under-employed due to gaps in their skills. By partnering with governments, local corporates and industry bodies, we have trained over 700,000 Indians so far and are on our way to impacting 10 million livelihoods by the year 2022.?

With infrastructure being a key driver of the Indian economy, and a massive increase in spending on infrastructure in India in recent years, the infrastructure equipment sector has seen tremendous growth. LabourNet in association with the Infrastructure Equipment Skill Council (IESC), has been at the forefront of providing skilling for this sector, since 2015, by developing the Qualification Packs (Courses) for training Entry Level, Middle Level and Supervisors for 29 different job roles.

HS Mohan, CEO, IESC, said, ?In the coming years it is projected that over a million additional trained operators and mechanics would be required to meet the expected growth of construction equipment. Therefore, skilling and certification of unemployed youth is critical to ensure proper usage of these sophisticated equipment and reducing the maintenance costs. LabourNet has partnered with us to first define the training courses and now to conduct the training for operators of cranes, booms and excavators.?

LabourNet also shared its plans for skilling in the Healthcare and Infrastructure Equipment sectors, which would help provide employment opportunities in India and abroad. LabourNet has been chosen as one of the first few authorised partners for the Government?s strategic Indo-Japan Technical Intern Training Program (TITP) that aims to send more than three lakh Indian youth to Japan for a one year internship program and technical training.