Hyderabad: Increasing automation would shave off 10 per cent of incremental jobs in India’s IT sector each year even as half of middle-level managers would also bear the brunt in the era of artificial intelligence, says industry veteran T V Mohandas Pai.
“I think in the IT sector, may be 10% minimum of incremental jobs that are created will disappear. That means every year if they do 2 to 2.5 lakh jobs, 25,000-50,000 jobs will disappear,” said the former CFO and HR Head at Infosys. According to him, middle-level managers account for 10 per cent – or 450,000 people – of the 4.5 million strong IT industry in India. Half of them (2,25,000) would lose jobs over the next one decade as their work would get automated. “There are today lots of people earning between Rs 30 lakh and Rs 70 lakh. Half of them will lose their jobs in the next ten years,” Pai told PTI in an interview. He said the new breed of IT engineers should have better skills and deep technical knowledge, adding, prospects for those having just a bachelors degree (B. Tech) are going to be less and less in IT. Stressing that IT hiring would become more and more specialised with companies looking for higher and greater levels of expertise, Pai said he would recommend the aspirants to do masters. “An ordinary B.Tech is like 10th standard today because you have to go ahead for the next 30 year,” the chairman of Manipal Global Education said.
