The net hiring in the $118 billion Indian IT and business process management (BPM) is expected to rise 6 per cent in 2014-15, driven by higher technology spend and a global economic recovery. These are the finding of the industry body Nasscom’s HR survey. The IT and BPM sector is the largest private sector employer in India. These are some of the other key findings of Nasscom’s survey.
Nasscom sees digital skills panning across analytics, cloud, and mobile technologies to be in key demand in the future. The trade body estimates the social, mobility, analytics and cloud (SMAC) market to be above $225 billion by 2020.
The IT trade body says that a focus on platforms and automation is driving a non-linear growth between IT companies’ revenue and manpower. This means companies are driving revenue growth without using as much manpower they employed in the past. The revenue per employee is up 1.2 times since 2009, says Nasscom.
According to Nasscom, demand for niche technology skills and domain-specific capabilities would force IT companies to focus on lateral hiring. Domain specialists make up for 11-12 per cent of the Indian IT sector’s direct manpower of 3.1 million, Nasscom says.
Small and medium enterprises are expected to drive hiring demand, with above industry average growth of 7-8 per cent in headcount. Mid-sized firms comprising 120-150 players employ 35-40 per cent of the IT sector’s total manpower while small-sized firms, with over 15000 firms, about 9-10 per cent of the manpower. Start-ups and emerging companies are also expected to contribute to the growth in hiring. Start-ups focusing on education, internet (nearly 400 firms) and e-commerce (nearly 500 firms) would provide the impetus to IT hiring.
Nasscom expects that bulk of the HR processes will get automated with digital technology playing a significant role in improving the talent hunting process. It will lead to a shift to non-traditional hiring methods such as online job portals, social media and referrals.
