The Skill Impact Bond Report 2025 is packed with promise and paradox. While it celebrates a significant rise in women’s participation, job placements, and even retention rates, the report also exposes a troubling reality: women still earn less than men for the same work. This contradiction sits at the heart of India’s skilling success story. It raises urgent questions about the value we assign to women’s labour.
What is the Skill Impact Bond?
The Skill Impact Bond (SIB), launched in 2021, is India’s first Development Impact Bond focused on skills training and job placement. To train 50,000 youth, including over 60% women from rural and marginalised communities, the SIB takes a results-driven approach focusing on job placement and retention for women. Out of this target, the programme aims to ensure at least 30,150 young people remain employed for more than three months.
Backed by a $14.4 million outcome fund, the programme focuses on high-growth sectors, including retail, logistics, healthcare, and IT-enabled services (ITES). However, the Skill Impact Bond (SIB) 2025 report reveals that gender-based pay disparities persist, and women continue to earn less than men, despite notable progress in their retention and employment.
Regional performance and demographics
The SIB Report 2025 shows that smaller and less industrialised states can still lead large-scale skill development initiatives. Out of all participating states, Jharkhand contributed 27% of total enrolments across four groups of trainees. Uttar Pradesh followed with 9.1%, Maharashtra with 8.7%, Odisha with 8.3%, and Telangana with 6.7%.
Most of the trainees were unmarried and in their early twenties. Their education levels were mostly around Class 10 or 12. These details highlight a big challenge in India’s workforce, where many young people finish school but lack the skills employers need.
More women stepping into non-traditional sectors
Women made up more than 70% of total enrolments. While many women are still trained in apparel, an increasing number have begun entering fields such as retail, ITeS, and BFSI. Their choices are changing. They are not sticking to traditional roles anymore.
For male trainees, construction remained a prominent sector in the early stages. But like the women, men also started shifting to ITeS, telecom, and retail. Automotive and BFSI sectors started seeing more enrolments, too. Over time, trainees on both sides stepped away from outdated assumptions about what jobs suit men or women.
Job results show good progress for women
Employment rates for women have shown consistent improvement. Certification rates among women trainees reached 92% by the fourth cohort. Job placements increased to 81%, and most significantly, three-month job retention among women climbed from 48% to 66%. This matches the retention rate of male trainees.
Men, on the other hand, continued to show strong certification rates between 90% and 94%. Placement rates remained stable, between 80% and 84%. However, actual employment declined from 68% in the first cohort to just 34% in the fourth. This drop is mainly due to many men choosing to pursue further education.
Skill Impact Bond Report 2025: A closer look at women’s participation
Out of 23,700+ total trainees across all cohorts, over 72% were women from economically vulnerable backgrounds. With a certification rate of 92% and placement rate of 81%, the numbers show that women not only participate but succeed when given the right support.
For women from marginalised communities, employment rose from 35% to 48%, and self-employment grew from 6% to 14%. Many of these self-employed women had received training as sewing machine operators. They are starting their ventures, especially in tailoring and small retail.
The increase in self-employment among women also indicates a shift in mindset. Instead of relying solely on formal employment, many women are building small businesses and contributing to their communities in new ways.
The persistent gender pay gap is still an issue
Women trainees matched or exceeded their male counterparts in certification, placement, and job retention. Despite similar job performance, women still earn less than men. While men reported earning between ₹12,400 and ₹15,700 per month, women earned between ₹11,500 and ₹13,000 per month.
Even the most effective skilling programme falls short if it leads women into jobs that pay them less for the same work. Addressing this wage gap requires employers to examine how they assign value to roles and who fills them. Pay transparency, regular wage reviews, and equal opportunity are necessary for the economic empowerment of women.
Skill development challenges in India remain
Despite the success of the Skill Impact Bond, many challenges continue to limit the reach of skilling initiatives in India. The India Skills Report 2024 showed that only 51.25% of assessed youth had the skills required to get a job. That leaves nearly half the population underprepared for employment.
The Economic Survey 2023–24 revealed that just 4.4% of youth received formal skill training. Another 16.6% were informally trained. These figures show that most young people still do not have access to formal, industry-relevant training.
The ManpowerGroup’s Global Talent Shortage Survey for 2025 reported that 74% of global employers are struggling to find skilled workers. In India, the demand-supply gap in fields like machine learning, data science, DevOps, and data architecture ranges from 60 to 73%.
Underemployment is another concern. More than 50% of graduates and 44% of postgraduates in India work in jobs that do not match their education levels. This shows that India’s workforce is not just undertrained but also underused.
Skill Impact Bond Report 2025: The final thoughts
The Skill Impact Bond shows that outcome-driven models can work. Women are completing training, getting placed in jobs, staying employed, and even starting businesses. The data shows progress, especially for those from marginalised backgrounds. Still, the persistent wage gap reminds us that real equality needs more than just access to training. It needs structural changes in hiring, pay, and job roles.
Changeincontent Perspective
At Changeincontent, we do not just celebrate metrics; we question what they mean. The Skill Impact Bond Report 2025 proves that women are willing and able to excel, even in non-traditional sectors. But until employers pay women the same as men for the same outcomes, these programmes only serve half their purpose. Empowerment must go beyond participation. It must lead to equal power, equal recognition, and equal pay.
Also Read: Gender pay gap: Why is equal pay still a pipe dream?
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are based on the writer’s insights, supported by data and resources available both online and offline, as applicable. Changeincontent.com is committed to promoting inclusivity across all forms of content. We broadly define inclusivity as media, policies, law, and history. It encompasses all elements that influence the lives of women and marginalised individuals. Our goal is to promote understanding and advocate for comprehensive inclusivity.
