Enhancing Employability Skills in the New Economy

Organisations have come to realise, over the years that improving technology and cutting costs improve performance only upto some extent. In the new economy, success in business depends much on people's ability. For private sector firms, this asset consists of the company's knowledge regarding its business processes, technologies, markets, organisation and products. All human resource management practices will have to change dramatically to answer to the demands of the new economy. Hence, it is essential to examine the key objective of developing a model for describing the skill for employability in the new economy. The recent policy emphasis on employability rests on the assumption that the economic welfare of individuals and the competitive advantage of nations have come to depend on the knowledge, skills and enterprise of the workforce. In today's global economy driven by knowledge, the foremost wealth of a firm is its human capital or knowledge assets. The knowledge-based economy recognises the key role of information-based technologies in providing a basis for the generation, management and utilisation of knowledge as never before, and for the emergence of knowledge-based industries. This paper highlights the importance of employability in a new economy and the demands of new generic skills for maintaining employability in a knowledge-driven world.