'We have not seen the end of layoffs in tech sector,' says Quess Corp CEO Sivaram

In conversation with DH, Vijay Sivaram, CEO of Quess IT Staffing talks about the changing employment landscape and emerging staffing trends in India.

While layoffs have become common in the current business climate with companies increasingly tightening their belts in fears of an impending recession, the market has also undergone a change with job roles transforming quickly, creating a major supply and demand mismatch for talent adept in using the latest tech efficiently. Against this backdrop, in a conversation with DH’s Lavpreet Kaur, Vijay Sivaram, chief executive officer of Quess IT Staffing talked about the changing employment landscape with the evolution of generative AI, emerging staffing trends in India Inc and rise in the outplacement demands by companies in turbulent landscape.

Edited excerpts.

Please take us through the rising impact of AI on the Indian job space, the roles which are in demand. How are things expected to change in the next five years?

When technology evolves it always impacts the jobs space. So, as generative AI makes its way towards user application, you will find some jobs being eliminated but as industries and functional domains start leveraging different formats of generative AI to make faster decisions, we will also see many newer jobs coming in and more ancillary jobs being created to support such roles. For example, one of the most sought-after jobs today because of generative AI is the role of a prompt engineer. It’s basically engineers who can ask the right questions. Certain low-end coding may disappear because generative AI can write its own code. Initially, it might feel like more jobs are going than the jobs coming but as use cases start improving, then we will see that changing.

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How is the layoff scene expected to change in the coming months? Will we see more cuts in the senior roles amongst startups and IT firms?

I will keep startups separate because they have multiple other issues hitting them which may not necessarily be a business-linked issue but more of cash flow issues. But the good news in the startup world which I am personally very happy about is the fact that the startups are starting to talk a lot more about profitability than they ever have and that is a good sign.

Coming to technology firms, have we seen the end of layoffs - no. But I do believe that the worst is behind us. I don’t think we will see more mass layoffs happening. What is also happening now is that hiring decisions are also taking longer. So, companies have not ramped up hiring and I don’t see ramping up of hiring happening for another quarter. This is a time when a lot of organisations are self-reflecting on what is their cost, rightsizing their forecast for their leadership and management cost.

What approaches are companies adopting to help their employees who are being laid off?

There are workforce optimisation models that companies are using- one of the largest used services is carrier transition services, also called outplacement. Employers are working with firms like Quess to build a career transition for employees into the next job. There are services that provide employees psychological support in the form of counselling, help them get their CV ready and train them with the right skills so that they are relevant when they are outpaced. So some companies that are letting people go also give them access to companies like us who further have access to more jobs, and therefore helping the employee continue their employment journey. So I think organisations are doing their bit to ensure employment continuity.

Any interesting trends in the hiring and workforce space to look forward to?

Personally, excitement in the next three months is going to be about how generative AI use cases are going to hit the market. We will find interesting use cases in industries like insurance banking, telecom etc and how they get implemented.

Any advice that you would like to give to employees who are at this point either being laid off or have the fear of being laid off?

It is not really gloom and doom. India is in a far better position than many countries in the world. And therefore I strongly believe that it’s about you being relevant, staying networked, and making sure that you’re aware of what’s happening. I think if you can get these three things right, you should not have a problem in staying ahead of the curve.