The Hindu Business Line : Indian tech workforce is two million strong

Hyderabad, Jan. 17 Technology workforce in India is set to cross the magical two million mark, with the march from one million to two million happening in just about three years.

This reflects both the sector momentum and appetite for growth fuelled by increasing interest in India as a preferred outsourcing destination and also availability of a large technical workforce.

“In a sector where the focus traditionally has been on financial performance of companies and the overall export numbers of the sector in general, it is heartening to note that the focus is now on headcount addition and job creation,” according to Mr Kiran Karnik, a man who steered the IT industry trade body Nasscom as its President from 2001, and when the industry passed through both these major landmarks.

Though Nasscom is yet to announce this achievement formally, Mr Karnik told Business Line, “We are pleased about this achievement as a recent report from Crisil suggested that for every one employed in the technology sector, it creates four other jobs. That means that the sector provides employment to about 10 million people directly and indirectly.”

“I have stopped interacting with media lately,” he said. However, when pursued, as always responsive to media queries, he opened up to comment on this major development.

Mr Karnik said, “This is no mean achievement for the sector as the formal sector in the country employs about 30 million people.”

So, will the next million tech jobs come through faster than this? It would be difficult to predict such numbers as it all depends on the overall growth and performance of the sector in totality.

However, while the Government has always been very supportive of the technology sector, the issue of extension of deadline for Software Technology Parks India (STPI) units must be treated on priority to retain competitiveness, he said.

This is important for small and medium-sized companies, which would find the going tough. Any delay on this could stifle the growth of the sector, he felt.

The last major milestone of one million was not formally announced. Mr Karnik disclosed this while attending a Nasscom event at the Indian School of Business about three years ago.

The Chairman of Nasscom and Cognizant Vice-Chairman, Mr Lakshmi Narayanan, reacting to this, in a statement said, “The IT and BPO sector employed 1.6 million professionals last year and we were expecting to touch a headcount of 2.5 million by 2010. If indeed it’s a fact that the headcount has crossed the 2-million mark, it underscores the rapid pace of growth.”

“The IT and BPO segment has been the largest job creator in the country. If the Government continues to provide encouragement to this industry by way of benefits and incentives, I am confident that a lot more jobs will be added, especially in the small and medium scale segment, which will also auger well for Tier-II and Tier-III cities,” Mr Narayanan added.

As someone who spoke about this in December, the Chief Executive Officer of Zensar, Mr Ganesh Natrajan, said, “The sector holds much greater promise if only we could broaden the overall employable talent pool. However, as opposed to the number additions, the focus would be on increasing productivity.

A Nasscom survey released in July 2007 stated that the industry recorded $39.6 billion revenues and employed about 1.6 million as of 2006-07. Last year, while IT software and services added over 1,77,000, ITeS and BPO added 1,38,000 people.