NEW  DELHI: There seems to be a significant skill gap in the country as 80pct of the engineering graduates are "unemployable," says a report, highlighting the need for an upgraded education and training system.

Educational institutions train millions of youngsters but corporates often complain that they do not get the necessary skill and talent required for a job.

According to Aspiring Minds National Employability Report, which is based on a study of more than 1,50,000 engineering students who graduated in 2015 from over 650 colleges, 80% of the them are unemployable.

"Engineering has become the de-facto graduate degree for a large chunk of students today. However, along with improving the education standards, it is quintessential that we evolve our undergraduate programmes to make them more job centric," Aspiring Minds CTO Varun Aggarwal said.

In terms of cities, Delhi continues to produce the highest number of employable engineers, followed by Bengaluru and the western parts of the country, the report said.

Kerala and Odisha entered the top 25 percentile list of most employable states while Punjab and Uttarakhand dropped to the 2nd and 3rd quartile, it added.

The study of employability by gender reveals a healthy trend, almost equal amongst males and females. This makes each role devoid of any gender-bias.

However, roles like sales engineer, non-IT, associate ITeS or BPO and content developer report slightly higher employability of females, it said.

Interestingly, the report said that unlike popular notion, tier-III cities too produce a share of employable engineers and should not be neglected from a recruitment perspective.

"These candidates could also possibly fill the entry-level hiring needs of several IT services companies," it said.

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