IT industry may see marginal dip in hiring in 2016-17

About 60-70% need re-skilling by 2025; in long term sector may require 2 mn people to add $100 bn revenue

The Indian IT-BPM industry would require 1.2-2 million employees to meet the revenue of $100 billion by 2025, according to IT industry body Nasscom, which also predicts that hiring may dip marginally during the current fiscal.

Speaking to reporters in Chennai, during the 13th edition of HR Summit 2016, R Chandrashekhar, president, Nasscom said on hiring numbers for the current fiscal, while declining to put any numbers he said it will be the same or slightly lower than previous fiscal. In 2015-16, the industry hired around two lakh people as compared to 2.2 lakh people, a year ago.

The hiring has not been in the same level owing to the automation and the higher margin pressures faced by the companies. This has led to companies using maximum manpower they have, by reducing the bench strength.

The industry currently employs 3.7 million people and India continues to maintain its leadership in the global technology arena, with over 2 lakh net additions and 3.5 lakh digitally skilled employees.

Nasscom says that reskilling is required in large scale. Growth of digital technology over traditional technology from 5% to 38% over the next decade.

Due to changing technology and skill sets in demand, there will be a gradual shift of the industry towards automation and arouns 5-10% of existing jobs may be automated in the next 10 years, signifcantly changing existing skills across job functions. While the hiring is in the lower side, there is demand for larger skills such as cloud, robotics, artificial intelligence and others.

While technology will displace some jobs, it will also lead creation of some new jobs - biotech, nanotech, smart technologies to name a few.

Various industries are still investing into IT and India's market share in global sourcing is going up, which brings in opportunity. The value addition India industry offers is a competitive edge compared to other countries.

Nasscom estimates that 60-70% of the existing workforce will be re-skilled in technology, domain, social and thinking.

He said that domain specialisation and greater need for soft skills have become the new patterns that we are witnessing throughout the sector.

"In the new world order, technology and automation have taken the center stage and companies are deploying them at rapid pace to enhance productivity. This trend will bring in a sea change in talent re-structuring and deployment, creating healthy competition and re-skilling opportunities," said Chandrashekar.

India's market share is going up by around 1% every year and it has touched 56% in the global offshoring market.

Maintaining this is important, he said adding that margins are coming down and deal sizes are coming down. However he was bullish about the long term growth of the sector considering the Indian industry got value proportion.