The Great Indian Career Stagnation
It was the year 2017 that marked one of the most unexpected events in the history of the Indian IT industry. Several thousand employees were all gearing up to reach their offices to work, complete tasks, go on meetings and get things done only to walk into something unbelievable.
The Indian employment machine had shut its doors in 2017 when it laid off thousands of employees without a prior notice. According to a Livemint coverage, companies in the industries were on a firing spree where close to 56,000 employees were asked not to report to work from the following day. The massacre of sorts did not care about the size of companies, year of establishment and annual revenue because market players and tech mammoths like TCS, Cognizant, Infosys, Tech Mahindra fired employees out of the blues.
In the corporate pyramid, it was not just those at the bottom of it who got laid off. Several managers and senior-level employees were given pink slips, too. When it came to the hiring front, resources share that the amount of campus hiring by tech companies almost fell by 60%. Earlier, freshers were hired in bulk in anticipation of prospects and projects in the near-future but since that year, the focus has been on immediate recruitment on a contractual basis.
For IT aspirants, this was the time hell broke loose. And for the others, this year was almost as worse as the financial crisis that rocked the year 2018.
The Reason Behind The Layoffs
If you read the interviews and reports from insiders and industry experts, you would draw a conclusion that the major reason for such massive layoffs was automation followed by changes in foreign policies with respect to outsourcing. A majority of the people in the industry claim that automation has snatched several job roles and that a few codes of algorithms have replaced human interferences at many levels.
But in reality, something contrary has happened.
Automation has only given rise to newer opportunities and in you take a closer look, those who understood and adapted to the emerging technological trends and changes never had to face the heat. With the onset of technologies like data science, machine learning and artificial intelligence, new and niche job roles that never existed previously have cropped up across companies.
Industry has only done away with redundant skill sets and it has not said no to manpower at all (it never will). It is constantly waking up to the potential and power of data and its allied technologies and seeking opportunities wherever possible to leverage it to its complete potential. Companies both big and small are reinvesting on data science experts to work on customer behavior, insights on workflow loopholes, process optimization techniques, areas of weakness and even attrition and significantly cutting down on expenses deeming unnecessary.
The Great Indian Career Stagnation
If you pause your life for a moment and look at current career graph, you would realize that it is becoming stagnated. By stagnation, we mean that your skill sets are not adding value to your company, industry and personal growth with respect to career. Monotony is a huge symptom of career stagnation followed by unrewarding tasks and job roles and inadequate pay.
The current pool of talent requires more than what skill sets it has to evolve into experts who can become irreplaceable in their respective fields. It needs to upskill to what will stay for the next 15 to 20 years and up their game in the competition. Companies never promised job security and it has always boiled down to how updated we are in our career path.
Also, job markets have always been changing. There was a time experts in Tally and Microsoft Excel or spreadsheets were in huge demand. Today, these have become basic skills we all possess. Evolution is inevitable just like our adaptability to it.
If you feel you are caught up in the stagnation and looking for an exciting job role or shift to restart your career, you need to develop new and niche skills or upskill to the technologies that are trending today and would be dominant tomorrow.
Speaking of a career path that would redefine job markets and industries tomorrow, we can think of nothing but data science and its allied technologies like artificial intelligence, machine learning and the Internet of things. Upskilling is inevitable today and this space is dedicated to bringing you the most resourceful information and insights on data science and having a seamless career shift.
Gear up as we walk you through the journey towards a more rewarding and satisfying career.
