HYDERABAD: Amid fears of massive layoffs in the IT sectors, reskilling the existing employees is set to gain prominence, providing an opportunity of Rs 20,000 crore for the training and skilling industry, said Rahul Patwardhan, CEO of NIIT, a leading IT skilling and training company, speaking to Express here on Thursday.
While the problem of layoffs in Indian IT sector, which employs about 3.9 million people, is minimal as of now, Patwardhan stressed that there is an urgent need to reskill IT employees.
“There is no denying that IT firms in India are going through a tough phase and profits are decreasing to single digits. Obviously they will look towards decreasing costs and pressure will be on
employees in the sector. The problem of layoffs was a tip of the iceberg this year as firms are grappling with the changing times, but it will be severe next year. However, reskilling is the solution to address this challenge,” he added.
To reskill IT employees, NIIT has already taken up a few pilot projects with Wipro and Cognizant, It has also launched StackRoute online course — a course to train IT employees in advanced skills like Devops, machine learning, IoT, virtual reality and others. The aim of the course is to focus on niche skills, turning IT employees into business leaders.
“We are not just partnering with IT firms but also with engineering colleges. We are targeting to double the number of people to be trained in FY18,” summed up the NIIT chief.