No Mass Layoffs In IT Sector, Says IT Secretary

Indian IT companies have not done anything different this year that they were not doing earlier. That's how the Indian Information Technology secretary Ms Aruna Sundarajan responded to reports that Indian tech giants are being forced into mass layoffs after President Trump's directive to hire local talent for their projects in the US.

"I don't know how this narrative is being built," said Aruna Sundarajan and added, "I have categoric assurance that this year's performance appraisal is no different from the earlier years."

The IT secretary, however, admitted that there were far reaching changes with regard to technology and skill. "What's happening is that new technologies are emerging, new verticals are being created, cloud computing among others. People are moving from one field to another," said Ms Sundarajan.

IT professionals, however, are not so optimistic as different companies have come up with their downsizing plan. Cognizant has already laid off 1,000 employees by renewing their contracts. This number could go up. Tech Mahindra has reduced their strength by 1,000. Wipro too would let go off 600 employees while Infosys too may not renew the contract of up to 1,000 employees.

But all companies insists that its part of their regular appraisal process that's based on performance," Certain amount of loss of jobs are cyclical in nature. Then there is also issue about skill," says Priya Chetty Rajgopal, CXO Search Consultant, an executive search firm.

Though the government is downplaying job losses in the IT sector, it is concerned about the proposed changes to the H1B visa regime and its economic impact on the IT sector.