Indian tech industry will add only 60,000 jobs in FY24 against 2.7 lakh in FY23: Nasscom

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The tech industry is poised to create 60,000 new jobs in the financial year 2023-24, taking the total to 54.30 lakh employees. This pales in comparison to the 2.7 lakh jobs that the tech sector created in the previous fiscal year.

The stark decrease in numbers comes at a time when the IT industry is facing demand pressure triggered by a macroeconomic slowdown in the key markets of the United States and Europe.

The $250-billion services industry companies generate over 60-80 percent of its revenue from markets like North America and Europe.

Also read: IT industry growth halves to 3.8% in FY24 vs 8.4% in FY23

“Because there was a lot of over-hiring done during the COVID year, we are seeing some level of correction happening, which is expected and needed for the industry," said Nasscom president Debjani Ghosh.

She added that hiring is moving towards jobs such as in artificial intelligence (AI), big data, cloud, cybersecurity, etc. “So the frontier technologies are where we are seeing the demand growing right.”

Nasscom said that the industry has committed 60-100 hours per year per employee on upskilling. Giving an update on generative AI, the industry body said these activities have increased by nine times in 2023 year-on-year. Over 6.5 lakh employees are being trained on the nascent technology.

Ghosh said that the pace of technology change is happening at a much faster rate than the ability to skill people. “And that's going to be the biggest challenge that industry will face, for as to how do you bridge this gap,” she added.

Nonetheless, Ghosh said India will be one of the few countries which would be the least impacted, when compared to the global numbers and the adverse impact on jobs.

“AI will absolutely bring some displacement in jobs, but there will also be a lot of new jobs getting created,” said the first women leader to head the industry body. Ghosh added the obsession should be on skilling people faster for these jobs rather than over job losses.