By HEMANT KHANDEPARKAR 15, May, 2019
Bursting The Fear Bubble – IT Layoffs In India

We have been most recently witnessing a lot of news about the layoffs in the IT Industry. Is it real or just a bubble? While the whole media is talking of layoffs in the year 2017, there is little talk of the number of IT jobs that have been last year on year lost in the past decade. Various industry reports state the number to be anywhere between 50,000 to 80,000 job cuts in the year 2017. When yahoo cut about 2000 jobs in Bangalore there was a lot of media attention that this attracted. But when some Bangalore based IT biggies downsized, there was very little media coverage and they quietly let go about ten times that number-20,000 to 25000 people in just one year. Many of these job cuts never grabbed significant media attention.

What is however important is to view the whole scenario from two different perspectives-the employer and the employee- perspectives

Is the phenomenon of job cuts new to the IT Industry?

The answer is a clear no. Maybe the quantum might vary in numbers but at this point of time there is no firm count or an organized platform or agency that announces the number of employees that an IT company had year on year let go in the past 10 years or publishes this data. And no company posts their employee downsizing on any formal platform nor do they invite press conferences like they do to announce good quarterly results or annual results and rightly so. And even if this were to be published it will be very difficult to segregate the desired versus undesired job cuts or attrition. Nor is this data published by the companies themselves in terms of the year on year dip in employee count because of job cuts alone and not necessarily because of undesired attrition. So first thing- Job cuts is a very natural phenomenon as far as the IT industry is concerned.

The employer view point-Is there a remedy for Companies?

One of the key reasons the IT industry has been constantly able to steer off crisis situations is because of its constant adaptability-its ability to evolve, innovate and adapt to a constantly changing environment. In times of distress, starting with the big American companies Microsoft, Oracle, IBM or HP and their Indian counterparts such as HCL, Wipro, TCS, Infosys CTS or Tech M (that bailed out Satyams and its employees) all emerged as winners over time. So whether it is a Trump Administration or an Obama administration, whether it is an Indian or American IT company if you see the track record of the past several years these companies mostly have not only had a very strong governance model but constantly have evolved the art and science of survival and profitability as a basic instinct and shown amazing turnarounds at various inflection points emerging winners. Whether it is on the technology front or whether through innovative value propositions, they have been consistently adapting to the business environment and keeping abreast with technology and market changes to meet ever demanding client needs. Someone said that if you take all the wealth in the whole world and distribute it equally amongst each person on this planet, within a finite amount of time, this wealth will go back to where it came from. This of course is a very diverse view though and all may not subscribe to it but if we take a clue from it, the individual players have learnt well to survive and overcome obstacles from time to time as is evident from the top 10 global and Indian IT service providers who have constantly innovated themselves through effective survival mechanisms. Companies who failed to adapt to that change, companies who failed to innovate also were not able to survive in the long run. One can name quite a few disasters or slow movers but let us by and large learn from the success of these great organisations.

The employee overview-Is there a remedy for employees?

One of the learning’s from the IT Industry is that one has to constantly add skills and a skill that you had 20 years ago or 5 years ago may not be good enough to take you to the next natural progression. A good example is of COBOL programmers who have become almost extinct over time, and 30 years ago they were highly in demand. Same is the case with the Y2K bubble that burst and there were various posts in the year 2000 -2001 the most popular one that showed scores of developers atop an elephant with tag line “B2B-Back to Bangalore”. What happened to these individuals? They ultimately did not re-equip themselves with newer skills nor adapt to newer technologies. A turtle is slow but is seamlessly able to adapt to land and water with equal ability demonstrates versatility. A firm belief that layoffs although may be painful in the short run on one hand, on the other hand pose not only a challenge but are a great opportunity to explore yourself from a knowledge, skill stand point, financial stand point economic stand point as well as from a technology stand point and as a professional as well as personal. I have seen a few colleagues quit IT and move towards something entirely different like starting a race track for potential motorbike riders, and being very successful at it. What brought you here today is not enough to keep you going where you want to be tomorrow.

Remember that it is anxiety of the unknown that is a bigger bubble, rather than speculate act to re -invent, act to reskill, act to be adaptable and that is the key.

Summary

In a constantly changing environment, embrace the change and challenge yourself to overcome the challenge, there is no other remedy than reinventing yourself and those who do will ultimately emerge winners…