This year has been particularly tough for Indians. More than 56,000 people have been laid off in the IT industry, which is one of the strongest ones in the country, worth $160 billion. The main reason why these jobs became obsolete is automation.
In 2017, tens of thousands of people working in the IT industry lost their jobs, making this spree even more alarming than the one from 2008, when the financial crisis made havoc across the world. As you can imagine, people not only lost their jobs but companies put the brakes on hiring, as well.
Digitisation and automation are the main culprits for the significant decrease in layoffs, going from a normal 1% rate to 2-6% this year. According to this report, 6,000 people at Cognizant lost their jobs to automation and the future doesn’t look good. By 2022, about one-third of the IT entry-level employees in India could lose their jobs, according to this prognosis.
If until now, companies’ HR strategy was to hire juniors thinking of their prospects long-term, now they are looking for just-in-time contracts. Campus hiring by firms from the IT sector fell by 50% to 70%, said Santanu Paul, CEO and managing director at skills training firm TalentSprint.
“After years of job creation in developing economies, the shoe is now on the other foot. Developed economies will be creating jobs for their own citizens in the foreseeable future,” TalentSprint’s Paul said. “India, on the other hand, will see high-value jobs being created, but not in high volume.”
The only ones standing to gain something now appear to be workers with niche skill sets, while the rest will continue to feel the aftereffects of automation.
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