Layoffs rile India’s flagship IT sector

MUMBAI: Experienced Indian techie Raghu Narayanaswamy lost his job recently and fears he may not get another, as analysts warn of massive layoffs across the country’s multibillion-dollar information technology (IT) sector.

IT outsourcing has long been one of India’s flagship industries but experts say automation, a failure to keep up with new technologies and US President Donald Trump’s clampdown on visas is creating industry-wide upheaval.

India’s business dailies have reported that major IT firms are gradually laying off thousands of staff while research has claimed that hundreds of thousands of jobs could disappear in the next four years, although the companies themselves have refused to comment on numbers.

Narayanaswamy was caught up in the turmoil in March when he was let go from one of India’s top IT companies after 11 years of service. He says his future prospects appear bleak.

“I have been finding it extremely difficult to find a job these past few months,” the 40-year-old, who is based in India’s commercial capital Mumbai, told AFP.

India’s IT sector boomed for more than two decades as Western companies subcontracted work to firms like Infosys, Wipro and Tech Mahindra, taking advantage of their skilled English-speaking workforce.

The industry employs nearly 4 million Indians and rakes in revenues of move than $150 billion, according to the trade body National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom).

Although layoffs are not uncommon in the industry, particularly in the final quarter of the financial year, union chiefs say staff are being made redundant in unprecedented numbers this year as firms deal with narrowing profits.

“Companies are unwilling to talk about the layoffs or how many techies have been served notice to leave as part of their annual appraisal,” said J.S.R. Prasad, chairman of the National Confederation of Unions of IT Employees (NCUITE).

India’s top IT companies have been complaining for a while about the difficulty of picking up new clients as businesses explore automation, robotics and innovative technologies such as cloud computing.

So analysts say it should come as little surprise if some are now streamlining operations.