Sunny days ahead for the IT-BPM industry, 3 lakh jobs to be added by March 2023, non-metro locations become a hub for digital talent: states TeamLease Digital.
TeamLease Digital, the specialized staffing division of TeamLease Services today launched their “Digital Employment Outlook Report” for H1-2023. An extensive analysis of the IT BPM industry in India, the report indicates that the IT BPM workforce is on the trajectory to grow by 7% in FY2023, with the overall headcount increasing from 5.1 million to 5.45 million (close to 3 lakh jobs being created). Additionally the demand for digital skills will grow by 8.4% by the end of this fiscal, and the report also highlights the top 15 digital skills that will be in demand.
Fueled by increased investments in the sector and rapid adoption of technology by enterprises; the demand for contractual staffing will also increase, as per the report findings. Contractual staffing headcount is expected to grow by 21%. Currently IT services companies, Global Capability Centers (GCC), and Product Development companies are the top contract staffing consumers, contributing in an excess of 70% of this trend. In fact, by itself, GCC headcount is growing over 10% y-o-y.
Sharing insights about the ecosystem and the report, Mr. Sunil C, Chief Operating Officer, TeamLease Digital, said, “IT-BPM industry continues to be a sunshine industry in India, being the largest employer in the private sector, employing about 3.9 million people, and contributing to over 8% of the GDP. Our industry here, also amounts to 55% of the global outsourcing market. As a super-cycle of digitization and with more companies focusing on rapid adoption of emerging technologies, demand for tech talent is going to see a strong surge in the coming quarters, especially in IT-BPM. As employment opportunities surge, and companies look for talent with specialized digital skills (reflective in the 8.4% growth in the demand for digital skills), candidates are also taking ownership of up-skilling themselves. Incidentally, 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”, added Sunil.
From a digital skills point of view, in FY-2023, at least 7 out of 10 IT companies will be looking for candidates with digital skills from emerging locations, as the demand for digital skills will witness an 8.4% growth. MarTech and IoT are two new additions to the digital skill set this year, with demand for MarTech expected to increase by 5% to 7% and that of IoT by 4% to 6% for FY-2023.
From a location perspective, emerging locations have become more prominent for digital skills. Sharing his views on this trend, Mr. Sunil C, further said, “Gone are the days, where talent would necessarily need to move to cities to find jobs. Today, with work from home avenues 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. For instance, Thiruvananthapuram, Coimbatore, Cochin, Chandigarh and Ahmedabad are building digital skills owing to the strong presence of large Tier 1 players, Product companies, GICs, and Startups. Not only this, at least 20% of the digital talent employed at Tier 1 cities are currently at emerging locations due to continuing work from home (WFH). Additionally, hiring of engineering graduates is also seeing momentum from emerging locations, but there is still untapped potential. Only 33% of engineering graduates (495000 from the 1.5 million) are getting hired and 35% of the graduates are emerging from the top 500 cities. However initiatives like degree apprenticeships and faster implementation of NEP will help make students more employable.”
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. In FY-2023, contract staffing attrition is likely to increase from 49% to 50% – 55%. However, on the brighter side, gender parity is improving. Industry leaders are continuing contractual gender diversity in Digital Skills in FY-2022 (at 20% currently) and in FY23 it is going to grow to 25%.
“Over the last ten years, more IT-BPM companies are aligning the synergies to improve gender parity in the workforce. Today, the emphasis is not just on diversity but inclusion as well. In fact, performance indicators reflect (up to 61%) that diversity and inclusion has augmented business performance”, added Sunil.
A comprehensive report, Digital Employment Outlook Report is qualitative research which has surveyed and interviewed more than 100+ employers, gathered insights from engineering colleges across 500 cities. The survey highlights employment trends in the IT-BPM sector, skills in demand, hiring of engineering graduates, attrition & diversity trends and global vs. India technology trends.
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Key Takeaways from the report:
· IT BPM workforce is on the trajectory to grow by 7% in FY2023, with the overall headcount increasing from 5.1 million to 5.45 million – close to 3 lakh jobs to be created
· Contractual staffing headcount grows from 1.51L to 1.8L, a 21% growth over last year
· Currently IT services companies, Global Capability Centers (GCC), and Product Development companies are the top contract staffing consumers, contributing in an excess of 70% of this trend. In fact, by itself, GCC headcount is growing over 10% y-o-y
· 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
· In FY-2023, contract staffing attrition is likely to increase from 49% to 50% – 55%
· On the brighter side, gender parity is improving – Industry leaders are continuing contractual gender diversity in Digital Skills in FY-2022 (at 20% currently) and in FY23 it is going to grow to 25%
· The demand for digital skills will grow by 8.4% by the end of this fiscal
· 7 out of 10 IT companies will be looking for candidates with digital skills
· 1.5 lakh professionals have upskilled themselves in digital related technologies recently
· Jobs are going to people instead of people migrating to the cities to look for jobs:
o Today, with work from home avenues increasing and more non metro locations becoming popular for digital skills
o Thiruvananthapuram, Coimbatore, Cochin, Chandigarh and Ahmedabad are building digital skills owing to the strong presence of large Tier 1 players, Product companies, GICs, and Startups
o At least 20% of the digital talent employed at Tier 1 cities are currently at emerging locations due to continuing work from home (WFH)
o In FY-2023, companies will turn to emerging locations for the supply of digital talent. The report estimates the digital skills population across emerging locations to be in excess of 75,000
o Thiruvananthapuram, Ahmedabad, Cochin, Coimbatore, Chandigarh, Indore, Mysore, Vadodara, Madurai, Visakhapatnam, Jaipur, Bhubaneshwar, Mangalore, Lucknow, Nagpur, Goa, Salem, Durgapur, Vijayawada & Trichy are 20 such locations that contribute over 85% of the talent from emerging locations across India
· Hiring of engineering graduates is also seeing momentum from emerging locations, but there is still untapped potential
· Only 33% of engineering graduates (495000 from the 1.5 million) are getting hired
· 5,29,615 graduates (35%) are emerging from the top 500 cities
· As of 2021, India annually produces 1.5 million engineering graduates out of which only 3% of students land relevant jobs in technical domains. Out of 1.5 million, on an average 33% which is 0.5 million are getting hired in software from the tier-1 and emerging locations. Estimates further suggest that 0.5 million engineering students are emerging from more than 2500 engineering institutions located across the country
· Among the graduate population in India, graduates from engineering streams contribute most to the digital skills talent pool. Our studies estimate about 9L engineering graduates as a part of this pool. Non-engineering students are estimated to be about 6L. 1.5L professionals have moved to digital-related technologies through a career transition or upskilling
· More than 75% of graduates are aware of the job opportunities in digital skills, especially in the last 2 years
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