Despite pink slips, job prospects not all that bad: Experts
An article in Business Standard highlights HR experts views on the recent layoffs in startups and IT companies; along with inputs from Rituparna Chakraborty.
Reports of layoffs in Start-ups and IT sector notwithstanding, HR experts believe these pink slips are due to a mix of non-performance and margin pressure and the overall outlook is not that bleak, with medium and high skilled jobs likely to see continued growth.
Layoffs are becoming pretty common these days as there were recent reports of job loss in Flipkart, Askme, Ola and Infosys, among others. But experts feel that layoffs help companies survive and trim costs.
They added that employees need to upgrade their skills on a regular basis.
“Layoffs are largely triggered by three developments – redundancies, termination of projects and automation of L1 roles,” said Rituparna Chakraborty, TeamLease Services Co-founder and Senior Vice-President.
She predicted that there will be immediate job cuts of people with redundant skills and underperformers.
For L1 (level 1) roles, more non-engineers are likely to be hired or some of the activities could be automated, she said, adding that it will trigger need for constant skill upgrades.
The IT and start-up industry is in a state of flux, driven by two factors — margin pressures and adaptation of emerging automation and artificial intelligence tools. Hence, constant upgradation of skills is key to success of an employee under this new reality.
“Multiple analyst reports indicate that medium and high skilled jobs are expected to continue to grow at a fast clip in the industry, providing cheer to employees who continue to upgrade their skills,” said Nishith Upadhyaya, SHRM India Head – Advisory and Knowledge.
With salary costs getting close to 70 per cent of the project costs, thin margins result in more scrutiny of non-billable resources, according to Vinu Nair, Managing Partner, Antal International Network, India.
The overall job market outlook though appears bullish, the analysts said.
“The demand for laterals with 5-12 years of experience is on the rise and the key for people in this experience range would be to remain hands-on. Director-level roles will remain a notch below recent years, mainly because net new projects are lower,” Nair said.
The business potential for Indian IT and ITeS companies is huge, but they need to work consistently on innovation service quality and cost to attract the rest of the world to continue to invest in India for their offshore/non-customer interface job centres in India, suggested GlobalHunt MD Sunil Goel.
TeamLease’s Chakraborty further said low-skilled jobs are not aspirational for any economy or country in the long run. As a region prospers through increase in per capita income, low-level jobs are either taken over by people from lesser prosperous regions or get automated.
This article was published in Business Standard:http://goo.gl/EqonBU
Author
Latest Blogs
The A to Z of Payroll Management for Businesses
As businesses grow, payroll management becomes increasingly complex. What starts as a simple salary-processing function soon expands to include tax compliance, statutory deductions, employee benefits,...
Read MoreWorkforce Redeployment is Top Priority in the AI Era
"We are being afflicted with a new disease ... technological unemployment." — John Maynard Keynes, 1930 Nearly a century after economist John Maynard Keynes warned...
Read MoreWhy Outsourcing Payroll Makes Business Sense in 2026
Managing payroll has always been one of the most critical responsibilities for any organization. Employees expect accurate and timely salaries, while businesses must navigate a...
Read MoreRetail Staffing and Recruitment Challenges in India
India's retail sector is undergoing a period of rapid transformation. Driven by rising consumer spending, the expansion of organized retail, omnichannel business models, and growing...
Read MoreCombat Employee Turnover with Predictive AI
Employee attrition has become one of the biggest workforce challenges for modern businesses. It impacts productivity, hiring costs, and long-term growth. Traditional retention strategies often...
Read More
