India's IT-BPM industry to create 3 lakh jobs by March 2023: Report

India’s IT-BPM industry is likely to create about 3 lakh jobs by March 2023 amid the rapid adoption of emerging technologies, according to a report.

The report by TeamLease Digital, the specialised staffing division of TeamLease Services, said that the IT workforce is set to grow 7% in this fiscal year, with the overall headcount increasing to 5.45 million from 5.1 million. Further, the demand for digital skills will grow 8.4% by the end of this fiscal year, it said.

TeamLease Digital Chief Operating Officer Sunil C said that 1.5 lakh professionals have upskilled themselves in digital-related technologies recently. 

"Overall, we also estimate that India's technology employment will grow from 5 million to 10 million in the next few years," he added. 

Another report by staffing firm, Quess Corp, pointed that data analytics, Java, cloud, full stack and UI/UX are most sought-after digital skills in demand in India, as organisations work on fighting attrition.

As per the survey, Hyderabad and Bangalore are among the top cities that lead in hiring demands while junior and entry-level hiring requirements are increasing with companies looking to optimise costs.

Data Analytics has the highest demand in Bengaluru (40%), and Hyderabad (30%) while Java has observed a spike in demand in Pune (40%) and Bengaluru (25%). IT products (22%), automotive and engineering (11%), BFSI (11%), telecom (11%), and consulting (9%) are the sectors in demand for talent, the report said.

 “As organisations continue in their digital and cloud transformation journeys, we are witnessing a hiring uptick in these roles,” said Vijay Sivaram, CEO, Quess IT Staffing. According to him, startup hiring is in moderation, however, on the other hand, India continues to see growth in captives, particularly in tech & R&D.

Last month, US-based staffing services firm, NLB Services also said that the Indian IT industry is likely to see robust hiring this year, amid high attrition. The report also points out on skillsets around data analytics, cybersecurity, DevOps, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) would witness a surge in demand by at least 35%-40% this quarter and beyond.  

TeamLease data showed from a digital skills point of view, MarTech and IoT are two new additions to the digital skill set this year. Sunil also pointed out that “with work-from-home avenues are increasing and more non-metro locations becoming popular for digital skills, companies are taking the jobs to people, instead of candidates migrating to the cities looking for jobs”.

The report showed that in FY-2023, at least seven out of 10 IT companies will be looking for candidates with digital skills from emerging locations, with cities like Thiruvananthapuram, Coimbatore, Cochin, Chandigarh and Ahmedabad building digital skills owing to the strong presence of large Tier 1 players, product companies, GICs, and startups.

From an attrition perspective, India's IT-BPM attrition continues to be on a higher side and this surge is expected to continue in the next quarters, according to the report. “In FY23, contract staffing attrition is likely to increase from 49% to 50-55%,” said Sunil.

The Indian tech industry clocked double-digit growth across sub-sectors adding $30 billion in revenues and nearly 450,000 jobs in FY 2022, as reported by NASSCOM. 

Upskilling continues to be the need of the hour given the emergence of present-day tech assets such as the metaverse and Web 3.0.

In FY22, Infosys hired 85,000 freshers, with its hiring up 2.2x in two years, and had guided that it would be hiring over 50,000 freshers in FY23. TCS saw a net addition of 14,136 staff during the quarter, HCL added 2,089, and Wipro had 15,446 new hires during the quarter.