Warning bell of CRISIL – IT jobs would halve by 2018

Ratings agency CRISIL (Credit Rating Information Services of India Limited) has indicated that the IT (Information Technology) sector is likely to lose its position as a mass employment engine by 2018 and new recruitments will nearly halve, even though companies will continue to report good revenue growth.
In the opinion of CRISIL, hiring and revenue growth will decouple as IT companies alter their business models. There is every possibility that the sector, which is a mass employment engine now, may not remain so in future.
In order to remain relevant, aspirants for IT jobs will have to develop lateral, even completely new skill sets so that they are more future-ready. There would be a greater focus on 'lateral hires' of professionals with domain-specific skill sets and expertise.
The ongoing global weakness is compelling clients to cut down on expenses and that has, in turn, forced IT companies to find ways to rationalize costs and ensure profitability. Therefore, software companies are implementing various measures like reducing bench strength, improving employee utilization rates and cutting down on other operational costs.
CRISIL warns that in spite of a healthy revenue growth of 13 per cent for IT services foreseen in the medium-term, aided by recovery in discretionary spending by clients, recruitments will shrink by around halve by fiscal 2018 (from the current levels) because vendors will focus on cost optimization by maximizing revenue-per-employee.
This will certainly be bad news for technology graduates, who are getting hired in large numbers from their campuses during the past few years.