TeamLease Digital Launches POWER to Bring Experienced Women Back Into India’s AI Workforce

With India facing a 53% gap in AI-ready professionals and one qualified engineer available for every ten GenAI roles, TeamLease Digital is positioning structured women’s returnship programs as a talent pipeline strategy rather than a diversity initiative.

TeamLease Digital announced the launch of POWER — Professional Opportunity for Workforce Empowerment and Reboot — on March 30, a structured re-entry initiative for experienced women professionals seeking roles in AI and digital functions. The first program under POWER, called the AI Career Accelerator: Returnship Edition, has completed its inaugural cohort, with participants entering the talent pipeline for AI and digital roles across India.

The launch is framed against a specific talent constraint: TeamLease Digital’s own analysis puts India’s AI-ready talent gap at 53%, with demand for AI, cloud, and cybersecurity roles outpacing qualified supply by a ratio of roughly ten to one for GenAI positions specifically. AI salaries have risen two to four times as a consequence. The POWER initiative targets mid-career women who stepped away from the workforce for caregiving or personal reasons, a pool the company argues brings measurable advantages in domain expertise, professional judgement, and retention over conventional early-career hiring.

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The commercial case for returnship programs is supported by data the company cites in its analysis. Across major programes globally, an average of 70% of participants convert to permanent roles, with some industry-specific programs reaching 80%. In India, Wipro’s Begin Again program reported approximately 80% retention among returnee hires in FY24–25, with internal assessments indicating cost parity with conventional hiring. Goldman Sachs introduced the returnship model in 2008; JPMorgan Chase runs a 15-week paid re-entry program that transitions experienced professionals into full-time roles.

The broader context on women in India’s tech workforce shows mixed progress. Women now hold 36.2% of tech jobs in India, up from earlier years, and their share in STEM upskilling program has grown from 22% in 2018–19 to 33% in 2023. Coursera reported 195% year-on-year growth in women’s enrolment in generative AI courses in 2025, with 3.6 million AI course adoptions by women across India. TeamLease Digital’s analysis positions these trends as demand indicators for structured re-entry pathways, arguing that organisations which invest in returnships as formal talent engines will be better positioned to fill roles that conventional pipelines cannot currently supply.

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