Small Indian towns expected to create 3.8 million IT jobs by 2020
By 2020, small cities in India are expected to create approximately 10 million jobs, including 3.8 million supplementary employment opportunities, in the information technology (IT) sector. In addition to predicting this, the National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM), the nodal organization of IT and ITeS (IT enables services) firms in India, has forecast that the strength of female employees in the IT and BPO sectors would swell to about five million by the same period.
A financial website quotes Som Mittal, NASSCOM president, as saying that it is anticipated that the information technology and business process outsourcing (BPO) segments would employ approximately 2.5 million people by the end of the 2011 fiscal, ending on March 31, 2012. While this is a significant increase from the present 2.3 million, Mittal said he was optimistic that together the two sectors would employ as many as 10 million professionals by 2020. He further said that while around 4.1 incremental direct employments are likely to be created in larger cities (tier I), tier II and III locations will generate around 3.8 million IT jobs during the period.
At the same time, Mittal pointed out while the workforce in the IT and BPO sectors in India during the last one decade were mostly from India, the ensuing decade would witness the Indian IT and BPO firms hiring around 20 per cent of its employees from among the non-Indians. Stating that there would be a distinct shift in the employment pattern, the NASSCOM president said that during the next decade Indian IT and BPO firms will migrate from the present delivery centric activities to domain specific services.
Substantiating his view, the NASSCOM chief pointed out that as the Indian IT and BPO firms assimilate with the global markets, they will increasingly concentrate on the international guidelines and procedures – a distinct shift from their current focus on domestic strategies. At the same time, Mittal urged the Indian IT and BPO firms to adopt any of the eight top hiring polices recommended by NASSCOM.
It may be mentioned here that the NASSCOM has suggested that while hiring new employees the Indian players ought to be firm regarding relieving letters, recruit from campus only during the eighth semester, employees to provide notice period, watch over non-compete bonds from customer contracts and put off people changing jobs too often.
Meanwhile, endorsing the views of Mittal, Cognizant Technology Solutions president and managing director R. Chandrasekaran said that adopting the ‘best polices’ recommended by NASSCOM would also be beneficial for the employees. He pointed out that the recruitment rush by the Indian IT and BPO firms has already reached the levels existing before 2007 – prior to the recent global recession.