Step Up Or Be Sidelined

Indian IT services industry is battling large-scale layoffs and reskilling seems to be the only alternative

- Ayushman Baruah

ONCE CONSIDERED THE HOTTEST sector to work in, the sheen of the IT industry in India seems like it is fading. If you weren’t in IT, you hadn’t yet arrived in life. Consider the perquisites: job security, salary, and, of course, the aesthetically designed offices with ergonomically appealing furniture. No wonder then, thousands of graduates queued up to work in IT companies, which boasted of a 100 per cent recruitment rate. Today the scenario has changed. It is now considered a risky sector. Here’s why: employees in the IT sector are being abruptly shown the door and most of the hiring has been put on freeze. Clearly, the industry has undergone a dramatic U-turn from what it used to be and a bounce back seems unlikely anytime soon, unless the sector thinks 10 steps ahead and puts the pedal to the metal on reskilling.

Protectionism Perils

The job loss scenario in the country could be a prolonged affair with almost 1,000 jobs being lost every working day, over the coming few years, says D. Venkat, CEO of Strides India Consulting, a Chennai-based HR consulting firm. “Job losses in the country across sectors, led by IT services firms, will continue over a 3-5 year time horizon; the process will be slow and painful for the employees and the country until 2022 as per the present forecasts.”

As per Strides India Consulting estimates, the number of job losses across sector could vary from a conservative 6 lakh people to a alarming 10 lakh in the next five year horizon. This would translate to about 2 lakh job losses per annum beginning 2017.