Future Of Job Market In India: IT Sector

There have been a lot of discussions revolving around the IT sector recently. And the predictions as per the pundits are not good. According to various studies the demand in 2016 and the next few years in IT sectors will be going down and the hiring might go down by 13%. So the colleges might not see the IT giants going into a hiring spree and the campus interviews which used to be the USP for many colleges might not be happening as it used to happen earlier.

I would like to term it in a different way. The hiring is not going down, instead the rapid growth in hiring has been curbed to save operational and infrastructure cost of the company. Engineering students cannot be assured of a job placement in an IT company just by holding an engineering degree. They need to prove their worth in order to get the job offer. The difference between on campus and off campus interview is just in the name and the chances of getting a job in both the scenario are the same. The preferential treatment that was being given to an engineering graduate (irrespective of their stream) has slowly started diminishing. In a nutshell, only the right and deserving candidates will be offered the job.

But frankly speaking this is not breaking news anymore. We have been seeing this trend since 2003 and although there have been certain years when the trends have looked good, mostly on campus interviews have been showing a downwards trend.

This year and the coming years will not be any different and new cloud based technologies and automation are being blamed for this. But my point is that for technology to survive it needs to be constantly evolving and changing. Change is the only constant thing in life. No, I am not trying to be philosophical here and give rhetoric's. But look at the history. Binary systems of 0 and 1 and UNIX systems were replaced with GUI (Graphical User Interface) to make computers more and more user friendly. Every time there was a change or technological advancement we feared massive job loss. But with every change the need for the right candidate has always been there and people have been getting job offers.

Yes, there will be a change towards cloud computing (in fact many companies have already started the ground work towards the shift) and the need for niche technologies will grow but the change will not be as drastic as it is being predicted. The need of other technologies and people with experience on those technologies will still be there. Yes over the time these technologies might get extinct but by then significant changes would have been made to fulfill the requirements of job market related to niche technology and cloud computing. And automation is still in its infant stage, it might work wonders for the companies or might also be a big failure. It is too early to predict the outcome.

Also one need to understand that even at the time of great depression or recession there was a need for employees. Recruitment was not stopped totally. Recruitment had significantly gone down for freshers and experienced candidates and IT companies had stopped increasing their bench staff. But hiring was never stopped. It is the same situation even now. I cannot see any change in the current scenario. If we look closely then the companies have only cut on their bench staff over a period of time, which is logical as extra manpower does become a burden to an organization over a period of time.

There is no doubt that it will continue to be a tough phase for the freshers and for the people who are not ready to change and enhance their skills according to the need of the market. But the demand will still exist for IT professionals. In fact looking at the current scenario I feel that the demand for people who are into research and development will have more demand in the market. Application development will be the need of the hour and the area which will be affected the most will be application support as artificial intelligence has still not reached a stage where computers can start developing applications. So the demand for developers will actually increase and anyone who can showcase his or her caliber will be the most sought after in the industry.