Jobs to double for IT sector in next 8 yrs

Gracing the occasion as a guest of honour, IT secretary to the government of India Jainder Singh, said, “The total numbers of IT and ITeS like BPO’s professionals have grown from an estimated 2, 84,000 in 1999-2000 to 1, 287,000 in the current year.” He added that apart from these figures at least thirty-lakh job opportunities have been created by this sector in giving indirect employment to people.

Singh also impressed on the need to move on the value chain by being innovative across three dimensions of business, knowledge and ecosystem. Putting stress on the quality, he said that the IT sector has to spread to other countries by tapping new centres of emerging demand. He also alarmed the trade of keeping with the times by introducing appropriate changes by working in sync with the industry and the academia.

Shri Kiran Karnik, President of NASSCOM, highlighted the significant role of the country, which it is going to play in the export of software services. He emphasised the need to understand the sector in the world trade, which is critical to business.

Laying stress on the engineering services and understanding of the global business he said that the projected picture of export of engineering services alone by 2020 is up to the tune of $40-$50bn; as such one can gain by focussing on these areas. Karnik also cited HR crunch on talent and the dearth of requisite professionals is the biggest challenge for the industry to reckon with.

Prabir Sen Gupta, Director of the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade said that the tremendous growth at which the IT sector is growing in India is remarkable by its sheer role in employment generation and GDP growth.

He also stated that the contribution of IT companies to the GDP is expected to increase from the current levels of approximately 5% to 10% by the year 2008. He also added that the Indian IT sector offers high quality services at minimal costs.

Mr Sen Gupta explained that one of the challenges for the sector lies in striving for the adequate number of the skilled people for the industry, even as he was hopeful that employment in the IT sector is expected to be double in lesser period than a decade.

Main focus areas of the symposium were, issues and challenges for IT and ITeS firms to sustain their global competitiveness, Domestic market: The road ahead and issues and challenges for global IT managers from the Human Resource perspective.

In the question hour session, of ‘the challenges for global IT managers, from the IT perspective’, in response to one of the queries regarding the management of HRs the dais said that getting a person in a company with a right attitude is a pre-requisite of any company. The person recruited should have a go-getter attitude, which is what makes all the difference. HR the panel agreed is a domain in the IT industry like everywhere which provides a platform to develop themselves while working for the concerned company.