India’s IT Sector Continues to Grapple with the Talent War

Taggd, one of India’s leading Recruitment Process Outsourcing providers, organizes the Decoding Jobs Annual Conclave which is a flagship initiative of Taggd to analyze the Indian job and talent landscape along with the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and Sunstone Eduversity.

The panelists started the discussion by recognizing that GICs are redesigning the hiring trends to access and harness the diverse talent pools across geographies. They mutually agreed that recent technological advancements transitioned the spectrum of GICs from a tech service delivery center to an organized in-house epicenter for IT services.

Reiterating the qualitative breadth of the Indian talent landscape, Saurabh Jha, Head HR, Capita India, said, “TA skills are super-niche in the current market scenario. Holistic technical skill combination is the key driving force that puts India at the forefront of the captive tech industry compared to other geographies.” Sameer Balpande, Head, Global TA, Quantiphi, stated, “India is a talent-driven market with a lot of potentials, and the key to excel is to hire the right talent from the base level (such as campuses) and train them to become industry-ready. Internal and external engagement is critical to talent growth.”

The panelists widely discussed the hiring challenges of the present service delivery mechanism. Sanju Laitonjam, Global Head TA, Zycus Infotech, opined, “India’s captive industry faces the challenge of matching the salary expectations and developing a collaborative work culture. It impacts talent retention and consequently the constitution of the lateral hiring processes.” Deepti Vij, Director TA, Honeywell, added, “India will be a lucrative offshore market for years to come owing to the cost advantage it offers in labor and real estate areas. However, skill-gap is the inherent challenge that hinders the potential growth of this sector.”

Discussing the practical solutions to hiring and retaining talent issues, Felix Jeffery, Associate Director, HTC, suggested, “The dynamics of the available tech talent pool are rapidly changing in the present scenario. The target remains to get the cost advantage and optimally utilize the resources. Training is the key to getting uniformity of service deliveries across borders.”

Ankur Jain, CBO, Sunstone Eduversity, steered the discussion towards academic-related questions. He highlighted the cosmic influx of talent in the industry by stating, “There exists immense competition in the universities to produce, deliver and place talent at the best places (organizations). The need of the hour is to build an integrated curriculum and mandatory internships to make the freshers job-ready.” Anshuman concluded the session with the expectation that buoyancy in talent demand continues and the constant talent supply fills in the talent gaps.

The Decoding Jobs Industry Sectoral Report for the IT industry put many of these insights into numbers as it unveiled the key hiring metrics for the sector.

● The IT sector is set to bet big on freshers by increasing fresher hiring by 9 percentage points in 2022. In the technology sector, companies’ investment in young and affordable talent is the need of the hour as it’s a key step in bridging the skills gaps.

● The number of employed people in non-tier 1 cities will increase from 31% to 33% by 2022. This will help decongest tier 1 cities and allow companies to invest in young talent in smaller cities.

● The sector saw a 60% increase in hiring during 2021. This is a remarkable increase given the early layoffs during the pandemic, rising attrition rate, and the continuous rise in talent demand. As the sector stabilizes and recovers, businesses expect that hiring will increase by 40% in 2022.

● Gig workers are expected to make up nearly 7% of the total workforce. The rise in hiring of gig workers underlines the growing need to bridge the skills gaps and talent gaps that exist in the IT workforce

To learn more, you may read the full report here.