Visakhapatnam: While skill development is constantly being stressed on in Andhra Pradesh, the India Skills Report (ISR), 2015 states that the state has got enough skilled candidates and the state requires more industries.

Due to poor industrial presence, AP students are losing out to their counterparts in other states.

ISR has been prepared by talent assessment company, Wheebox, in collaboration with the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) and LinkedIn, the business social networking site.

The study for the report was conducted in 2014 and Andhra Pradesh represents the pre-bifurcated state in the report.

As per ISR-2015, AP ranks among the top 10 states in most of the parameters when it comes to the “supply” part of employment – skilled labour.

AP ranks eighth in highest employable population, third in logical, computer and communication skills and first in behavioral skills, which include learning ability, interpersonal skills and adaptability. Among age groups, AP stood first in 22-25, fifth in 18-21 and ninth in 25-29.

Unfortunately, the “demand” part of employment is dull in the combined state. In “sector-wise most preferred states” for 11 industrial sectors in 2014, Andhra Pradesh stood seventh, after Karnataka, Maharashtra, Delhi, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal even though the latter fare poorly when compared to AP in many parameters.

In “top states of presence for each industry sector”, which also expresses the desire of the industries to set up operational bases, AP is preferred only for the pharma and healthcare sector, a major part of which has gone to Telangana after bifurcation.

The report mentions: “When we look at the geographic spread of industries in India, few states have more prominent presence of certain industries compared to others. Do the same preferences exist when these companies look out for talent? If the corporate responses are any indication, then yes there are a few states which are preferred and in most of these cases the preferences match with those of prominent presence of that sector. However, this data does indicate that proximity of talent to the business location does play a role in hiring decisions.”