50,000 IT jobs on chopping block in next 6 months

26 December, 2008

Due to recent global meltdown in world economy, IT and ITES sector in India may lead to layoff of over 50, 000 jobs in the coming six months. However, IT employees are ready to take cut for 12 to 16 months to ensure they don't lose their jobs.

DARK CLOUDS are looming large over the once booming Information Technology (IT) and IT Enabled Services (ITES) sector in India as global meltdown might lead to the loss of over 50, 000 IT jobs in the country.

A body of IT enabled services professional has predicted that the situation in the technology sector will worsen due to the export demand. A leader of Union for Information Technology-Enabled Services (UNITES) India, a union of ITES professionals warned that more than 50,000 IT professional in the country could lose jobs in the next six months.

In the period between September and December the IT and BPO sector have lost around 10,000 jobs, the union said. At the start of meltdown, IT employees of medium companies had lost their jobs, but now the brunt will be faced by professionals in the bigger and smalled firms, UNITES India said

To ward of the firing decision, companies could also resort to cutting salaries and incentives in order to avoid large scale layoff, it added. In the wake of global recession, IT employees are ready to take cut for 12 to 16 months in order to ensure that they do not lose their jobs.

In the last layoff period, IT companies maintained that the employees fired by them were the bottom five per cent in performance. UNITES India also said that experts in UK and USA have also said that slowdown will hit IT services in India.