The Indian IT industry will add a minimum of two lakh jobs in the near term, even as macroeconomic headwinds bought on by inflation, and possible economic slowdown globally loom, said Kris Gopalakrishnan, Co-founder of Infosys. He was speaking at the 25th edition of the Bengaluru Tech Summit.
The industry will grow secularly because investments in technology and digitisation will continue to rise over the years ahead, Gopalakrishnan noted.
“There will be ups and downs because the industry will follow ups and downs in the global economy, but that’s the short term. And there are challenges — issues related to work-from-office, attrition, and moonlighting — but I am confident that the industry will continue to grow,” he added.
March of technology
The Indian IT Industry is expected to grow at 8-10 per cent on a base of $220 billion. The march of technology continues with AI/ML, Cloud, IoT, Web3, blockchain, NFT, and Metaverse, Gopalkrishnan added.
He also said the IT services sector is resilient to change. “Digitisation accelerated during Covid, the Indian IT services companies and the global development centers in India demonstrated that they have the resilience to withstand any shock and came out with flying colors and increased the trust of the global businesses,” he remarked.
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Gopalakrishnan said the IT sector in Karnataka for instance is moving beyond Bengaluru and setting up centres in Mysuru, Mangaluru, Hubballi-Dharwad and Belgaum. This is enabling employees to be closer to home and leverage technology to work remotely.
HR analysts believe it might take time for the IT industry to step up hiring volumes given the current market situation.
Rituparna Chakraborty, Co-founder of TeamLease Services, told businessline, “Some parts of the industry are of the opinion that it’s going to take 18 months for hiring volumes to increase as firms are currently choosing to focus inwards in terms of productivity improvement, efficiency and profitability.”
Kamal Karanth, Co-founder of Xpheno, a staffing solution company, said: “In the last 18 months, the sector has done massive hiring, hence now there is a sense of the sufficiency of talent in the IT industry for now. Expansion-related hiring wouldn’t be seen in the few quarters.”
Balaji Kumar, Chief Human Resources Officer, Sonata Software, said: “‘Digital modernisation is an imperative that no business enterprise can ignore. The talent pool in India will continue to play a pivotal role in helping business enterprises in creating value through digitisation. From that perspective, the demand for talent will continue to be robust. In addition, new technologies and their applications keep emerging and taking a centre stage which too would require talent.”
Kumar added, “In our opinion, the macroeconomic headwinds are likely to impact only the discretionary IT spends. IT companies which have strong value proposition and deep customer relationships, will be resilient in the face of changing macroeconomic forces barring a few minor adjustments. To that extent, the outlook with respect to hiring is healthy and tempered with cautious optimism.”
Betting on technology
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is in Bali at the G20 summit, addressed the event virtually and underscored the growth of technology in India, “India has shown how to democratise technology, it has given it a human touch. In India technology is a force of equality and empowerment,”
The three-day Bengaluru Tech Summit kicked off on Wednesday. Over 500 exhibitors and start-ups are expected to participate.
The summit also saw Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai releasing the Karnataka Research Development and Innovation Policy with the objective of financing the infrastructure and institutions required for it.
