Tech Job Market In India May Get A Boost Amid Layoff In US

Large-scale layoffs in the US may have spooked techies in India. But the global downturn is likely to boost the domestic job market and trained talents are likely to find many takers, IT industry experts have said.

But those working on the onsite or big companies such as Amazon, Google, Meta Netflix, etc have reasons to worry as they face the prospects of a dip in their compensation.

While Twitter's massive layoff plans hit the global headlines on Friday, media in the US also reported large-scale firing across startups and hiring freeze in big tech companies such as Amazon and Google.

"Amazon announced it would no longer fill certain corporate positions, while Apple said it would stop hiring in most departments. In doing so, they join other megacap tech companies including Facebook parent Meta and Google parent Alphabet that have frozen hiring over the past few months," reported fortune.com

Fintech company Stripe, ride-hailing company Lyft figure among the companies that have announced layoffs.

Tech layoffs announced in the US are a symptom of the global downturn in the markets playing out in all industries, said  Peeush Bajpai CEO & Founder, SpringPeople, a certified partner of Google Cloud Platform for training enterprises and IT professionals.

The drive to cut down on costs typically forces companies to focus on their core operations while cutting down on supporting or supplementary functions through outsourcing.

"We can reasonably expect a number of these US organisations to realign delivery of these projects and functions from lower cost-base markets like India, which in turn will boost the domestic job market and trained\skilled resources are going to be in demand," Bajpai said.  

IT professionals in India can take advantage of this potential upsurge in demand by ensuring they are ready with the qualifications, certifications and skills required to fulfil this upcoming demand, he noted.

"These are course corrections and they repeat every few years. We are optimistic about India, provided the strategy/value proposition offered is right," said Kapil Sharma,CEO, FiveS Digital, an IT services and consulting firm.

Sandeep Budhiraja, Co-Founder and Chief People Officer, BYLD Group, said hiring freeze will impact new job creations.

BYLD Group offers technology-enabled HR and business productivity solutions for different industries, including IT/ITeS.

There will be implications for people in the existing roles. Firstly, people who are already there on the onsite or working in the FAANG (Facebook, now Meta, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, and Google) will face the challenge of employee productivity optimisation and that will put more pressure on existing roles and productivity, he said.

"We may also see a temporary dip in the compensation of the existing people directly or indirectly. This will come in the background of three things - One, there was a massive hike last year due to the supply-demand issue. Two, margin realisation of the big tech companies all over the world will go down. Third, skill gaps that will arise due to the changing technologies,"

Sharma of FiveS Digital dismissed the chances of an immediate exodus of IT sector employees back to India. "But if things do not improve (I suspect), it might happen in early or mid- 2023," he added.