'Modern retailers face skilled manpower crunch'

Modern retailers are facing acute shortage of skilled manpower in Uttar Pradesh with almost 90 per cent of the new recruiters requiring comprehensive and on-job training.

The manpower crunch is more pronounced in the junior and middle management levels, Big Bazaar area manager S N Gangil told reporters here.

“Their training spans 4-6 months, which involves both cost and time factors,” he said adding a big store typically required manpower of around 100.

The company plans to fulfill its future manpower requirements through its learning vertical ‘Future Innoversity’, which has 3 centres at Bengaluru, Kolkata and Ahmedabad and a new centre coming up in Delhi.

These centres will impart specialised retail training under full time MBA and BBA courses. The courses would be certified by Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU).

Future Innoversity is the initiative of Future Human Development Limited (FHDL).

“The company has also tied up with Axis Bank and Standard Chartered for providing education loans to its students,” Delhi centre head Anil Kalia said.

While major tier II towns in UP, including Lucknow, Kanpur, Agra and Allahabad have presence of some leading modern retailers housed in shopping malls, the demand for skilled manpower is bound to rise with a number of mall properties under development.

Lucknow alone has 5 shopping malls with a couple of more likely to join the league soon.