While hiring in the Indian IT sector is expected to see an upswing in the coming year (2019) campus hiring is expected to witness a healthy intake next year. As per the projections by the HR specialist firm TeamLease Services, IT services companies will be looking at fresh minds just out of college as they are easy to train on new skill sets compared to professionals who have to re skill themselves. “Off late, many engineering and technical colleges are now embarking on new projects for their students which are helping them to be job ready while still in college. This is helping them getting a first hand feel of things while in college. This includes both IITs, Tier 1 and 2 engineering colleges,” Alka Dhingra, General Manager, TeamLease Services told THE WEEK.
Dhingra further added that the overall hiring trend in the IT sector is expected to witnesses positive momentum in 2019 and 2.5 lakh new jobs in the sector are expected in 2019 with a 10 percent to 13 percent projected increase in salaries. “While the ‘Digital India’ initiative has been one of the key contributing factors in the growth of IT, telecom and e-commerce sectors; some other reasons for the optimism in the IT industry has been increasing investments in digitization and automation as well as improvement in financial services and digital businesses. With so many companies embarking on digital transformations, business-IT hybrid roles will emerge to help organizations fulfill their evolving digital visions,” said Dhingra.
This expert feels, though there would be pressure to hire locals in countries such as the US, UK and in other parts of Europe, it will not affect the hiring of IT professionals in India in the coming year. “I feel that a majority of offshoring work will still happen from India as the companies are also concerned about their own profitability and projects from international firms will still come to Indian IT services companies. In fact there are many companies who are willing to offer higher salaries to their workforce in India if they are willing to re skill themselves. Moreover, the big consulting firms such as IBM and Accenture will also continue to hire in 2019 though they may not hire at the same pace as the Indian IT service companies,” remarked Dhingra.
Dhingra also observed that demand in the IT sector has been quite positive during the the second half of 2018 as investment scenarios have become more conducive and more organizations are coming to play in the sector. “The upswing in IT hiring is also because of the entry of new players in the sector. In 2019 the run up to the launch of 5G services which will also increase jobs in technology. Hiring in the IT sector is also expected in computer, mathematical, architecture and engineering fields. By 2020, about 2 million job additions are anticipated worldwide of which 13 per cent increase will be from India itself. During the recent financial results, many IT firms have committed to increasing their workforce by 2020.” she pointed out.
The projection by Dhingra also points out that by 2020, the demand for data analytics in sectors will continue to increase employment opportunities by 25 per cent and some prominent roles in demand will be computer software developers, Information Security Analysts, Machine Learning, Mobility, Cloud Engineer, DevOps, Network Analyst and Cyber Security experts. The projection also observed that start-ups will be strong contributors in generating employment in the IT sector because of their expanded adoption of AI, Robotics, Blockchain and IoT. Addition of IT jobs are not just from technology firms but with changing world dynamics, even non-technology firms will contribute to job growth due to the pervasion of digitization across sectors.
She also observed that salaries are projected to rise by 10 to 3 per cent in 2019, and the highest paid technology areas are going to be big data analytics, machine learning and AI developers. “Automation, artificial intelligence and robotics are expected to reshape workplace culture and skill requirements. Organisations, therefore, would need to re-examine not just their talent strategies but also their remuneration strategies for creating the workforce of the future,” said Dhingra.
