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Journalism of Courage
NEW DELHI, APRIL 16: India is heading towards a tight job market situation for software professionals by the year 2003.
According to a National Association of Software and Service Companies (Nasscom) study on the demand and supply status of knowledge workers for the industry, although India will not face a shortage of professionals for the next couple of years, demand may overshoot supply by 2002-2003.
Releasing the initial findings of the study on Sunday, Nasscom president Dewang Mehta said that to bridge the impending demand-supply gap the government and the software industry has to take immediate steps to improve the quantity and quality of software professionals in the country.
The survey said that there were 3,40,000 software professionals employed in the country as on March 31′ 2000. This marks a more than 100 per cent growth over the 1996 figure of 1,60,000 professionals, thanks to the mushrooming software and dotcom compaies.
Companies have projected a demand for another 1,40,00 knowledge workers between 2000 and 2001. Around 73,000-85,000 new software engineers are currently available to the industry on an annual basis. This indicates that there are just about adequate skilled engineers in the country.
Although, in the next two years, an additional number of 40,000-50,000 professionals are expected to pass out from private training institutes and MCA courses, it is not going to ease the job market as there is a lot of demand for Indian software professionals in countries like the US, the UK, Germany, Singapore and Japan.
The mood in the industry indicates that even if the current manpower pool is increased ten-fold over the next five years,it will be absorbed by the industry, the report said.
According to a recent Nasscom-McKinsey report, India will require a minimum of 2.2 million workers by 2008. Mehta said that the government needs to make a lot more efforts to cater to the increasing demand. "In order to meet the global requirements of software, it becomes necessary for the Indian software industry to add to the requisite number of technical professionals into its pool every year."
The newly set up Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIITs) and Nasscom’s Indian Computer Professional Institute (ICPI) will churn out another 25,000 software professionals by the end of the year 2003, Mehta said. He added that Nasscom was holding talks with the ministries of information technology and HRD to initiate similar ventures.
Almost 68 per cent of the software professionals employed in the industry are in software development and operations, 14 per cent are in marketing, 16 per cent are in support while the remaining two per cent are in related activities, the report said.
The overall median age of software professionals is about 25.3 years, according to the report, and 81 per cent of the professionals are men. However, the percentage of women professionals is expected to increase to 35 per cent by 2005 from the existing 19 per cent.
In 1999 there has been an average rise of 16 per cent in basic salary over the previous year. This is the lowest rise ever recorded since 1992.
The study said that Indian professionals have been highly rated by their employers in India and abroad for their quality. Most were given an average of 9 on a 10 point rating scale.
