Three in every five companies in India want to hire STEM-qualified women

The rise in demand for STEM-qualified women is expected to rise the highest in the retail and e-commerce industry

Just over three in every five (62 per cent) companies in India want to hire women qualified in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) subjects, a report released on Tuesday showed. The remaining 38 per cent want to raise the proportion of women in their workforce by 11 to 20 per cent.

According to the "Bridging the Skills Gap – Towards an Equal Workplace" report released by IT services provider NTT DATA and digital talent solutions firm NLB Services, as the demand rises, the proportion of women enrolled in online STEM courses has also gone up. It rose from 22 per cent in 2019 to 32 per cent in 2021. Currently, India ranks second in terms of the number of female online learners.

The report added that the demand for STEM-qualified women is expected to rise the highest in the retail and e-commerce industries. It is expected to be followed by the Healthcare and Pharma and Information Technology (IT) sectors.

Fifty-eight per cent of the companies in the report said that they believe gender diversity has a positive impact on the workplace.

"We are encouraged by the findings of this survey, which demonstrate that a majority of employers (58 per cent) recognize the positive impact of gender diversity in the workplace," said Terri Hatcher, chief diversity, equity and inclusion officer at NTT DATA.

"The domain of STEM has long been suffering from a massive gender disparity. With women representing just about a quarter of the STEM workforce globally, it's time we set out to answer the burning questions pertaining to this divide...It is encouraging to see that most employers surveyed (58 per cent) think gender diversity can lead to higher revenue growth and over half of the employers (51 per cent) also believe that gender diversity can lead to improved innovation," said Sachin Alug, chief executive officer (CEO) at NLB Services.

It also revealed that 54 per cent of the companies agree that hiring more STEM-qualified women in leadership roles will significantly promote gender diversity. Seventy-five per cent of these further plan to prepare and encourage STEM-qualified women employees in their organization to take up leadership roles.

The report also highlighted the work requirements of women in STEM. It said that 67 per cent prefer to work from home, 22 per cent prefer working from the office, and 11 per cent want the hybrid mode.

The top three expectations of such women employees from the organization they would join are:
 

• Flexible/remote work policies (51 per cent).
• Maternity/paternity policies (45 per cent).
• Learning and development (44 per cent).