ET's Jobs Disruption survey finds scary reality of IT layoffs

Ever since PM Narendra Modi came into power, he has faced a continuous issue in the form of job creation, more so because he had promised to create one crore jobs prior to his victory.

While the job industry was already marred by lack of private investment, demonetisation further played its role in complicating the issues, which have now been fuelled by widespread layoffs happening in the private sector.

It began with Larsen & Toubro, India's biggest engineering firm, firing 14,000 employees that formed 11.2% of its total workforce in November last year. It was then followed by startups, citing lack of money to give out salaries.

After demonetisation, manufacturing and construction industry too started to layoff employees, followed by a massive number of layoffs by IT majors like Cognizant, Wipro, Infosys and Tech Mahindra.

However, several key people in the government and private sectors are of the view that job losses isn’t a trend yet, terming it an exaggerated term for regular performance-related trimming.

However, employees believe that their jobs are in danger, and so does the Jobs Disruption Survey conducted by ET Online that surveyed around 11000 employees, majority of which showed fears about their jobs.

Survey results match with the predictions of several experts and studies, that the future holds big layoffs going up to 50%, with little hope of things going upwards.

Around 62% of respondents said that they think their job prospects would continue to shrink, because of slow private investment, demonetisation, and above all, emerging technology that can replace human workers.

In the IT sector especially, increasing automation and cloud computing have resulted in several employees being left redundant.

The ET Jobs Disruption Survey further reveals that acquiring new skills is the only way to save yourself from being replaced, a view shared by around 81% of respondents.

While re-skilling might not help with bigger issues like protectionism or demonetisation, it can surely help in increasing one’s own capabilities, which would make an employer reconsider his decision to layoff an employee.


(Image source Freeport News Network)