NEW DELHI: Amid reports of mass lay-offs in the Information Technology sector, the government on Tuesday said that it was assured by the IT sector that there would be no large-scale job cuts.
Speaking on the sidelines of a seminar on Broadband here on Tuesday, IT Secretary Aruna Sundararajan said that the IT sector has recorded higher growth of 8-9 per cent despite slow down.
She noted that the concerns of mass lay-offs could be due to a few issues like contracts being renewed or awaiting renewal.
“Some of the companies which have been named (as undertaking job cuts) have clarified that there is nothing big this year,” she added.
She said the government was hopeful that the IT sector would continue to hire.
Noting that the sector has added five lakh jobs in the past two-and-a-half years, Sundararajan said, “The issue needed to be looked at holistically.”
According to executive search firm Head Hunters India, job cuts in the IT sector will be between 1.75 lakh and 2 lakh annually for the next three years due to under-preparedness in adapting to newer technologies. Wipro, Infosys, Cognizant, and Tech Mahindra have initiated job cuts as part of their annual performance reviews.
Meanwhile, Sundararajan also tried to allay fears of a large-scale impact of WannaCry ransomware on India.
She pointed out that CERT-In, the cyber security arm of the government, that keeps a close eye on cyber attacks, has identified a few isolated cases and there was nothing in the reports from them to suggest a large-scale impact on India.