HYDERABAD: Reflecting the large-scale disruption and consequent automation of processes sweeping the corridors of India’s IT giants, net hiring for the industry is expected to end the current financial year at one lakh new hires — a huge drop from the 1.7 lakh net recruitment recorded in FY17.
The projection of net addition in headcount is also much lower than Nasscom’s own earlier forecast of 1.3-1.5 lakh new jobs for FY18. Net hiring in the next financial year is also projected in this region.
“While it may not be at the levels during the hay-days, we expect that those trends would continue going forward as well,” Nasscom president R Chandrasekhar said.
IT industry’s net recruitment has been in continuous decline since FY14, when it clocked 2.3 lakh. From that number, recruitment fell to 2.2 lakh in FY15, 2 lakh in FY16 and 1.7 lakh in FY17.
While the reduction is a significant dip from the glory days, Nasscom added a caveat that this does not reflect all IT-related hiring in the country. Chandrasekhar and Nasscom chairman Raman Roy pointed out that with IT-related job roles rapidly increasing across sectors, while purely IT firms might be recording lower net hiring, other sectors are seeing a rise. “Our figures do not include this recruitment,” said Roy.
“There is continuous decline in the ratio of revenues to employment in the IT sector… The decoupling is due to factors like automation, onshoring and effective utilisation of existing headcount. But, the increase in IT roles outside the sector is generating employment in the manufacturing, healthcare and financial sectors. This figure is growing at much faster pace,” said Chandrasekhar.