Hyderabad: The IT sector is projected to add one lakh jobs in the upcoming fiscal year 2018-19, a flat growth compared to last fiscal, said industry body Nasscom. “Net employee addition has been nearly 1 lakh in 2017-18, which is lesser than the earlier projection of 1.5 lakh jobs,” it said adding that more technology jobs are moving to non-tech sectors like banking, healthcare, etc.
Nasscom on Tuesday projected a growth rate of 7-9 per cent for the IT and BPO sectors for fiscal 2018-19 as against 7.8 per cent in 2017-18. Speaking on the sidelines of WCIT 2018, Nass-com president R. Chandr-ashekar said “Even thou-gh there are 39 days left for current financial year to conclude, we expect to wind up with $167 billion revenues excluding the e-commerce sector.” With 24 per cent exports from the IT industry, it is the largest export sector for the country.
Even though the year commenced on a low-key note, the second half of the year is expected help the sector to clock $167 billion revenue, representing a growth of 7.8 per cent for export revenues and 10 per cent for domestic revenues. Nasscom expects that the future of the industry will lie in digital at scale as global digital spending is growing at 20 per cent annually. India’s digital revenues grew at 30 per cent in fiscal year 2018.
The industry is expanding its digital footprint with growth of 7-9 per cent for technology services, 10-12 per cent for domestic technology and New age digital to grow 1.5-2X of industry growth. Mr. Chandrashekar said, “There is still some turbulence and it is not clear how some of the known uncertainties will play out. Challenges like the changes in immigration and impact of tax reforms in the United States will certainly influence the positive sentiment. Headwinds are still there and some of the uncertainties remain but the overall industry continues to grow demonstrating its ability to overcome challenges.”
AI can add $1tr to India, says Ghosh
Allaying fears about new technologies making jobless, Accenture Group CEO Bhaskar Ghosh said India must embrace the change. Speaking at WCIT, Mr Ghosh said artificial intelligence (AI) has a potential to add $1 trillion to India’s economy by the year 2035. He said though the United States continues to be the leader in AI, countries like the UK, Germany and China are trying to dominant the new space.
While appreciating Nasscom’s initiative for reskilling of employees, Mr Ghosh said Indians need new skilling and not reskilling. He said differed with popular notion that rel-ates AI only to IT. “We need to understand that we need to have different kinds of skills. But when we talk about AI, we only talk about IT. It is not about it,” Mr Ghosh said. He, however, said AI should responsible, which means it must be accountable, transparent, fair, honest, and support humanity.
