The entire industry and employers are today crying about the great Talent Crunch. i.e., the lack of availability or short supply of educated, skilled and ready-for-job candidates who are required to meet the growing work needs of the industry in various sectors of our economy. Every seminar on HR generally has some subject connected with this issue. Many experts feel that there is an acute shortage of right type of talent and hence an urgent need for action plans to counter the effect of Talent Crunch at workplace. The realization seems to have dawned on many employers that certain short-term and long-term measures need to be initiated both within and outside the organization to alleviate the ill effects of such Talent Crunch. This article tries to examine this issue in greater depth across sectors and across various constituents that come into play to render Talent Crunch ineffective. Certain specific measures as suggested by industry experts are also included as part of the approach.

Talent Crunch refers to a general situation wherein the industry and employers feel pinched by the short supply of employable talent to work for them to produce goods and services demanded by their customers. As a result of this, the customers either switch over to new suppliers, or find alternative channels of managing their requirements. As a consequence of this, the industry loses its share of business either to alternate channels, or to their competitors. Such Talent Crunch can occur due to various reasons, most primary being the gap between the demand for labor and supply.

This phenomenon is relatively new in a country like India which had been generally witnessing high levels of unemployment of educated youth. The origin of Talent Crunch in India can be traced to the Software boom of 1980s and carried on till it got another sector added to it namely the IT Enabled Services (ITES) in the late 1990s. In the past few years, as the economy started growing, sector by sector, practically in every sector, industry observers are voicing the existence of Talent Crunch. In this way Talent Crunch is a good problem to live with temporarily because it is a problem of the good times and prosperous days.

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