Telecom to create around 2 mn jobs this year: Report

With 5G technology, the infrastructure sector will catch up and add a plethora of opportunities

The telecom sector is expected to create two million jobs this year, thanks to increased data penetration and entry of new service providers, says a report.

The entry of new service providers, the government's initiatives like 'Make in India' and thrust on mobile economy will also add to the buoyancy in the sector, it said.

"While the overall hiring will see a boost, the verticals that will drive the manpower requirement are handset makers (1.76 million) followed by the service providers (0.37 million)," said the report compiled by TeamLease along with Telecom Sector Skill Council.

With 5G technology, it added, the infrastructure sector will catch up and add a plethora of opportunities in the long run.

"Infrastructure will add 0.92 million jobs by 2020-21 and the overall labour requirement for the sector by 2021 will be over 8.7 million," it added.

"While the increased focus on affordability, reduction of the prices of handset, operator's investments in improving networks, demonetisation and the following push for adoption of digital wallets will boost the availability of job openings in the sector, the sector still seems to be grappling with skill deficit," TeamLease Services Senior Vice President Neeti Sharma said.

The sector requires skills in areas such as IoT, mobility solutions, telecom infrastructure, network architectures, sales amongst others.

Some key profiles that will see rise in demand in 2017 are network engineers, infra and cyber security professionals, application developers, system engineers, I-DAS engineers, in shop sales executives, handset manufacturing technicians, call center executives, services & infrastructure technicians , back office & administration, repair executives among others, the report added.