About 1,900 Indian tech professionals lost jobs in 2012

BANGALORE, INDIA: When news emerged early this week that Motorola Mobility, a Google subsidiary, has decided to shut down its Chennai unit and to pink slip 76 employees, the resultant feeling was déjà vu.

Well, 2012 has been like that for telecom and IT sectors, largely due to the gloomy global outlook and its repercussions were being felt back home in India. Till date, almost 1,900 technology professionals have lost jobs this year.

Recently, the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) warned of job losses and appealed for urgent measures to tackle the slowdown after the Index of Industrial Production dropped to - 5.1 per cent in October.

Motorola Mobility was acquired by Google just a year-and-a-half ago in May 2011 for $12.5 billion in an all-cash deal. By this August, the unit divulged its plans to slash about 4,000 jobs and close one-third of its 90 facilities across the globe.

Mid-November, global semiconductor giant Texas Instruments (TI), which set up a development centre in the 1980s in India, made public that it would cut 1,700 jobs globally. In a matter of weeks, it became evident that around 500 engineers in India would face the axe. In order to shift it attention towards greener pastures, TI is believed to have revised its long-standing strategies to make ICs for mobiles and other devices.

French telecommunications equipment maker, Alcatel-Lucent, decided to sack 1,000 employees in India, even as it worked on its global restructuring drive.

Mobile manufacturing company, Nokia, also announced in April its decision to lay off about 300 employees in its Bangalore R&D center by the end of next year, which means about 3 per cent of its Indian employees would lose jobs. It also said it would outsource 500 to Accenture as a part of its global restructuring programme.

What do you think about these job cuts? Was it really warranted or companies just wanted to reduce workforce to better prospects? Have your say.