India could be a major supplier of talent to the world -- here's how to make that a reality

Summary

India needs to ask how to prepare its workforce and get the best bargain as ageing nations queue up to hire young workers. If left to chance, it will mainly permanently export its young and receive remittances only while they last. The next decade will decide the outcome for India.

The world is getting older, and India is not. Across Europe, Japan and elsewhere in East Asia, there are not enough young people to care for the elderly or staff the factories. India has a large and young workforce, and for the next two decades, it is likely to be the main supplier of the people others are short of.

The demand is already visible. Japan projects a shortfall of 570,000 care workers by 2040 and has signalled plans to recruit 50,000 skilled Indians over five years. Germany faces a severe and persistent shortage of skilled workers, with over 700,000 current vacancies. Berlin has also announced an increase in annual skilled-worker visas for Indians from 20,000 to 90,000.

New Delhi has responded with diplomacy. External affairs minister S. Jaishankar has said that India has signed or formed 28 migration and mobility partnership agreements, or similar arrangements, with 26 countries. An India-European Union mobility arrangement signed in 2026 covers students, workers and professionals across the bloc's 27 member states. Paper agreements, however, are not the same as a workforce that is ready to go.

The people-market fit: The central question is whether Indian workers actually match what these markets want. Often they do not, at least not without heavy private spending. Kerala's nurses are the standard example. Families spend lakhs on training, language tests, certification, visas and travel, usually through agents and by taking loans. It works for those who can afford it, and the cost and the risk fall on the individual.

If India is serious about being a supplier of talent, this should become a system. At the input end, this means: occupational language and cultural training built into vocational courses, not bought separately after graduation; certifications that foreign regulators recognize, so a qualification earned here is accepted there; visa and travel support, with regulated, low-cost recruitment that replaces the agent economy; and diaspora networks that help new arrivals find housing, jobs and community.

The nursing route shows what is possible, but it grew informally. A national skilling-to-placement pipeline, run with industry and state governments, could do for every sector what informal networks did for nursing. The task now is to build the same pipeline for care workers, technicians, welders, hospitality staff and factory hands.

Working the other end: The second half of the work is with the destination countries. Governments that need workers soon will pay for the right ones. India should negotiate as a partner, not a petitioner: guaranteed placements, recognition of Indian credentials, protection against exploitation and a share of the cost of training.

Germany's agreement, one analysis notes, does not itself widen the German legal framework for recruiting skilled workers. The details of implementation decide whether a pact produces jobs or only a press release. Joint monitoring of recruiters and workplaces would also help, so that a promise made in New Delhi is honoured on the shop floor in Osaka or Stuttgart.

Will India benefit? This is the hardest question. The headline numbers look good. India received $137.7 billion in remittances in 2024, up from $83.2 billion in 2020. The World Bank puts the 2025 figure at about $150.7 billion. No other country comes close.

But remittances are a thin measure of national gain. The Gulf model worked well for India because workers there return home. They go for a few years, send money back, and eventually come back with savings and experience.

The pattern in Europe, the US and Australia is different. Skilled workers arrive on contracts, then settle, bring their families and stop sending money. India's loss is permanent, and what it keeps is the diaspora's goodwill, some investment and the occasional return of capital and ideas.

If India trains people at its own expense and watches them settle abroad, it would be subsidizing other countries' ageing problems. Some commentators are already uneasy about this. One recent analysis warns that the optimistic reading of India's role as a global skills hub breaks down on closer inspection.

There are ways to tilt the balance. Circular migration, where workers move between countries, can be written into agreements. Host countries can share training costs, so India is not the only investor. Returnee programmes can reward those who bring skills home. And India must keep enough trained people for its own hospitals, factories and homes, since its own population will age too, though later.

A choice, not an accident: India has the people, and the world has the need for them. What is missing is a plan that treats migration as a deliberate national strategy with its costs counted, not a happy side effect of a young population.

If done well, India could supply the world's workers and also build a stronger economy at home. If left to chance, it will mainly export its young and receive remittances while they last.

The next decade will decide which of the two it becomes.

The authors are, respectively, chair and researcher, International Institute of Migration and Development.