The few months and years into 2023 are already proving tough for those who work in the tech industry, with tens of thousands of job losses already announced by the sector’s biggest players.
The IT industry has been laying off employees citing excessive hiring, funding challenges and cost pressures. However, one factor that is playing a big role in this drama is the skills gap.
Generally, retrenchment is not done at the entry level because from cost perspective companies try to get rid of middle management who are being paid heavily. But according to some experts, skills play a role when a company decides to lay off a part of its workforce.
Experts say that while skill may not be the prime reason to initiate layoffs, it becomes an important factor in decision making.
employment gap
The ‘Employability Gap’ has become a topic of discussion in the IT industry recently, with many believing that the educational system does not place an emphasis on developing strong foundational and professional skills.
Debunking these claims, Soham Thakar, CEO and founder of Gamerji, told News18 that the problem is that Indian colleges focus on academic curriculum.
“The IT sector develops and grows so fast that the curriculum cannot match the pace. For example, today we are considering some coding languages and tomorrow things will change. We do not talk about how Java And who knows C++.
While people’s analytical thinking or basic technical skills may be good enough, the world out there has moved beyond academic curriculum and this is the time a company should spend a lot of time and resources to train recruits, he said. .
“So what started to happen is that the people who had access to this real-time knowledge turned into costly resources and ultimately lead to layoffs,” Thakar said.
However, he believes that it is important for the government and the private sector to integrate with the colleges so that the latter can keep up with the pace of what is going on in the market.
Pankit Desai, CEO and co-founder of Securetech, echoed similar concerns and pointed to several issues such as mediocre teaching staff in engineering colleges and an outdated education system.
“If you want to create a pool of skilled students who not only understand the domain, but also something that the industry is looking for, that needs to be overhauled.”
Talking about the skill gap, Desai said: “IT companies that keep complaining about talent shortage understand what they need. That’s why the industry has to move forward. It can set up an organization that can produce good teaching staff, professors, researchers and thinkers who can exit after 10-20 years and start their own set of universities that will help the next generation. do.
“We have not seen corporate India getting involved in education the way I would like to see. We want them to contribute not just money but also industry partnership forums, teaching courses, providing more internship opportunities to students, basically creating a whole process,” he said.
frequent layoffs
Amit Vashishtha, founder and CEO of GALF, says that although skill gaps and performance are playing a role in layoffs, recent events have shown that layoffs depend on a company’s financial health, industry demand-supply, external economic conditions and external economic conditions. Can be caused by situations. Even the political landscape.
“The recent surge in layoffs is not a one-time phenomenon and will continue into the future as companies face increasing cost, automation and investment pressures, making it difficult for many to stay afloat.”
“Delivering competitive value to customers while maintaining a good ROI on shareholder capital is making layoffs and digitization an essential task,” he said.
Vikas Kakkar, founder of Amara.ai, believes that even though the skill gap could be a factor, there are many other reasons behind the layoffs. But according to him, it is important for employees to have the necessary skills to stay competitive in the job market and avoid layoffs.
“Workers must continually update their skills to remain valuable to their employers as industries evolve and technology advances. That’s why, in today’s job market, employers and It is important to invest in education and training programs for both the workforce.”
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