JOIN USIt's difficult phase, says Nasscom
Even though net hiring is around 1.5 lakh people in the current year, Nasscom stated that the Indian IT industry is going through a difficult phase because of a combination of factors. But at the same time, it is creating employment in allied industries also.
“Each individual company will be adopting their game plan to tackle issues relating to multiple skill sets, higher productivity, technologies like automation and importance of consulting. Now, clients are seeking not just technology but more business value,” Nasscom President R Chandrasekhar told DH.
He said the hiring is growing at a gentle pace. “Earlier, IT industry growth was in the double digit and the same figure was in the hiring front. But now, the growth has reached 8% and the hiring has come down by half,” he said.
Chandrasekhar also pointed out that the employment generation should be taken in totality.
“We should understand that the IT hiring is now stagnant, but hiring is registering tremendous growth outside the industry. We should understand that Flipkart created half a billion jobs. Companies like Uber, Ola and other ecommerce companies have generated employment,” he said.
Former Infosys HR Head T V Mohandas Pai has made it clear that Indian IT companies are not facing massive layoffs but only facing some structural changes. “Some employees are shown the door because of business impact due to slower growth,” he said.
Interacting with DH, Chairman of Manipal Global Education, Pai, said besides double-digit annual attrition, IT companies are doing annual appraisal so that there will be a set of people, who will go out of the organisation.
“It is a normal activity every year and there is nothing uncommon in it. For instance, Infosys has two lakh people and has an attrition level of 15%, and that means 15,000 people will leave the company on an annual basis. Also, close to 1,000 people, who are bad performers, will also be shown the door, and that is not a big number,” he said.
Pai said that Cognizant has a total employee strength of 2,40,000, and it is facing 12% attrition, that is 28,000 annually, besides 4,000 to 5,000 non-performers will also go. He also pointed out that Wipro has 1,40,000 people and they have similar attrition.
When asked about the current scenario, Pai said IT companies are also terminating some mid-level employees who have become non-performers because they have become stagnant after seven to twelve years of service.
“There are too many mid-level employees in the organisation and can’t be rehabilitated in the organisation. These people are shown the door because of the business impact and due to slower growth. The impact of technology in this scenario is minimal. IT spend is diminishing across the globe now,” he said.
Recently, Pai said Infosys CEO Vishal Sikka’s decision to hire over 10,000 American workers over the next two years could be just a rhetoric aimed at calming the Trump administration’s hostilities towards IT outsourcing companies.
“It would be very difficult for an Indian company to hire over 2,000 American IT specialists in deep technologies such as AI and machine learning in a place like Indiana. The key talent in technology space in the US likes to work in the Silicon Valley, and the statement could be aimed at pandering the current political climate of the country,” he said.