After tepid job creation in 2017 and 2018, India’s IT industry may be back in the market hunting for talent next year.
As IT companies in India begin to see large deals coming their way after a few subdued years, the sector is geared up to add around 250,000 new jobs in 2019, according to HR and staffing solutions provider TeamLease Services.
In 2017, the IT sector added over 100,000 jobs, according to Nasscom (pdf). But the industry, one of India’s top employment generators until a few years ago, laid off over 56,000 people between 2017 and 2018. In the past two years, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and Infosys, two of the country’s largest IT companies, reduced their headcounts for the first time ever.
Now, the adoption of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, and robotics for automation is driving the industry’s growth. Besides hiring afresh, Indian IT companies will continue to spend on upskilling employees. In 2019, this is estimated to increase by around 20%, TeamLease said.
“The overall job landscape in the IT sector will undergo radical changes over the next few years and certain job roles will continue to see increased demand. Some of the areas wherein positive growth in hiring is expected are mathematics-, architecture-, and engineering-related fields,” said Alka Dhingra, general manager at TeamLease Services.
Salaries are also expected to grow in tandem next year—TeamLease expects a 13% average rise, at par with 2018.
However, a few jobs involving data analytics, machine learning, and AI development will fetch higher salary bands, the company said.
Marching ahead
By 2020, job creation in the Indian IT sector is expected to surge to about 2 million new additions worldwide, of which around 13% will be in India itself, according to Teamlease.
A potentially strong area of employment will be data analytics, an increasingly crucial field across industries.
Other prominent roles in demand will be computer software developers, information security analysts, machine learning, mobility, cloud engineers, network analysts, and cybersecurity experts. “Health-Sciences and FinTech are two industries that are going to hire extensively for data analytics and machine learning,” Dhingra said.
There will be a 25% rise in roles related to big data, business intelligence, and analytics, while cloud computing opportunities will increase by 23%.
Startups will be strong contributors to generating employment in the next two years because of their expanded adoption of AI, robotics, blockchain, and IoT.
However, there still is a mismatch between candidates’ skills and industry requirement.
“Jobs roles in IT have become multi-dimensional and the industry needs to take a generation leap in re-skilling its employees. To facilitate advance skilling, it is also crucial for organisations to hire highly skilled and technologically sound HR representatives as well as development specialists who can hire the right talent in the ever competitive market,” Dhingra said.