IT industry needs to re-skill 1.5 million people, says Nasscom President

Re-skill is the one mantra that can prepare the $154-billion-strong information technology industry for the challenging future that lies ahead. The industry is marching on to become $350 billion by 2025, and to reach that aspirational goal re-skilling employees is critical, said R Chandrashekhar, President, Nasscom.

The IT industry is continuously pounded by newer and powerful technologies like automation and by political and economic upheavals globally. It has to create a niche for itself and once again repeat the cycle of learning, unlearning and relearning. The industry needs to re-skill nearly 1.5 million people, he said welcoming participants at 14th edition of two-day Nasscom HR Summit.

The industry is facing a unique turbulence. Disruptive technologies are eliminating jobs and creating new jobs, he said.

Later speaking to newspersons, Chandrashekhar said industry growth for next fiscal is expected to be 7-8 per cent with growth in employment half of thatindicating ongoing decoupling of revenue and HR , he said. Even this year, the IT industry will be a substantial net employer hiring overall a net of 130,000-150,000 people, he said.

On digital technology, Chandrashekhar said by 2025 share of digital as part global technology spend will go up by nearly four times to 60 per cent. In absolute terms, it will be even more. This means there is still a sizeable share of traditional (legacy) business, which will be phased out in next five years. The pace of this change is a monumental challenge but striking the right balance is critical to sustain the growth, he said.

Global companies, including Boeing and Shell, are betting heavily on digital business. This change is occurring across all sectors. The IT industry is driving these changes and is itself impacted by it, he said.

On automation, he said it is a global force but adoption will take time. Pace of change has accelerated significantly. For example, the US loses 21 million jobs every year due to technology and business changes but creates over 23 million jobs, he said.

Nasscom’s sector skill has identified 55 new job roles and 155 new age skills. These will be relevant for future. Big data and analytics are examples of new technologies and market opportunities in these are expected to grow by nearly 8 times to 16 billion by 2025. There is a huge spurt in demand for business analysts, solution architects, data analysts and data scientists, he said.

On the side-lines of the HR summit, Nasscom announced winners of Digital Skills Awards 2017 to highlight the initiatives undertaken by technology firms to develop digital capabilities among existing and future workforce.

Awardees are Infosys Ltd – for digital academy; iNautix Technologies – Digital Pulse; L&T Technology services – transformation programme for digital re-skilling; Mindtree – Digital engineers for tomorrow; Saviant – Digital skills development programme; CSS Corp Pvt Ltd – In-house learning academy; and Hughes Systique Pvt Ltd – Facilitating re-engineering of its workforce at all levels of the pyramid.

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