Hyderabad: The news about India’s largest IT services company Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) laying off two per cent of its workforce or nearly 12,000 employees, to make itself agile, came as a thunderbolt to the large community of IT professionals in the city.
Hyderabad is one of the major hubs for IT and IT-related services in India, with over 1,500 companies employing approximately 9,05,715 employees, which leads to the generation of thrice as many indirect jobs in the city.
Global tech giants like Intel, Microsoft, and Google reported layoffs to realign its human resource strategy in line with the changing technology landscape, which is now dominated by artificial intelligence and machine learning.
Experts view these layoffs are just a trailer to the actual movie, as almost all companies will have to trim their expenditures because of the advent of AI and ML, which made hiring humans to write code utterly redundant.
According to Mohammed Safdar Hussain, head of HR in an IT firm in HiTec City, “There are multiple reasons for which pink slips could be given. A person could be wrongly hired, or the person’s failure to meet expectations. When the mid-level employees, who are hired with a big package, fail to deliver, they are served with notices. If they still can’t perform, they are fired by offering them a pay of few months.”
Meghana, senior manager in one of the IT companies, “There is fear building amongst the employees. Layoff is the main topic going on, and no one knows whose turn it is next.”
“For non-performers, two cycles are given, which are for a year or two. Managers will have one-to-one meetings with those employees who failed to meet the expectations, to inform them about where they are failing. If a company has more experienced employees, some will have attitude issues, while some are not eager to upgrade themselves.”
“Compared to mid-level employees, the company has to pay a lower salary to freshers. They deliver work quickly because new generations are well-versed with the new tools of technology,” she explained.
“In the future, only well-equipped people could survive in this market. Earlier, many jobs used to come to India as the cost of getting a job done in India was cheaper compared to the US. However, after AI and ML entered the technology landscape, these jobs can be done in the United States using these advanced technologies at a fraction of the cost incurred on the Indian IT employees.”
Experts also agree that the current market conditions are highly unpredictable, and it is unclear where the IT and IT-enabled services sector will stand in terms of employment opportunities six months from now.
