Pink slips rain in Indian IT but Nasscom head denies jobless growth

With companies in the information technology (IT) realigning and reskilling their workforce to address a changing requirement, Nasscom, the apex association of companies here, has said it would look at bringing norms related to human resource (HR) issues, if needed.

Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of an HR meet organised by Nasscom here, R Chandrashekhar, president, said: "We would not want that anyone should lose their job at all. But, given the circumstances, some of these cases will come up. We believe that companies have to handle this issue with sensitivity, transparency and with agility."

This year, the IT industry would be a substantial net employer, hiring overall on a net basis, 130,000 to 150,000 people. The peak in 2013-14 was around 240,000.

"It is not a case of jobless growth, much less job shrinking, which a lot of doomsday prophets have been talking about but one of deceleration of the rate of growth of jobs," he said earlier. Reskilling was the only way forward. Nasscom had been working on a collaborative platform in this regard, he said, and would require support from the government, which should not be delayed. It is currently discussing with members on the areas where held is needed, such as content, training, learning modules, assessment services and certification.

Automation itself wa creating jobs, said Chandrashekhar. "Besides, there will be new opportunities which get created in other sectors, because the value lies at the junction point of technology and domain."

He added that what was happening in IT should be expected to follow in other sectors.

India contributes to 56-57 per cent of the global IT services market. Growth for the next financial year was expected to be seven to eight per cent and the growth in employment at four to five per cent.

The sector skill council of Nasscom has identified 55 new job roles and 155 new-age skill required for the future. Big data and analytics are two major areas opening up -- the market opportunity in both these is expected to grow eightfold from now to $16 billion by 2025, with a spurt in demand for business analysts, solution architects, data integrators, data architects, data analysts and data scientists.

"The challenge in terms of skilling is now clear and we are buckling down to that," he said.

In the next five to seven years, it is expected that half of Fortune 500 companies will shift to Asia; at present, a quarter are in the region. This means the industry will have to serve more Fortune 500 companies in the region, culturally different from the companies it has been dealing with so far.