Demand for IT professionals to continue : Nasscom

BANGALORE: Companies have projected a demand for 140,000 knowledge workers

between 2000 and 2001 (two years) i.e. about 60,000 more professional for the

year 2000 and another 80,000 for the year 2001, states a National Association of

Software and Service Companies (Nasscom) report.

Nasscom has released the initial findings of its study on demand and supply

status of knowledge workers for the IT software and dotcom industry in India.

This study was initiated in March 2000 and is likely to be completed by June

2000.

While releasing the initial findings of the study, Nasscom president Dewang

Mehta said, "The good news is there is no immediate shortage of quantity of

skilled knowledge workers in India for at least next two-three years. But, if

the Government of India and the software industry does not take immediate steps

then the job market can become very tight in 2002-03". He further added,

"Moreover, steps are also required to further improve quality of software

professionals".

Lately, there has been lot of demand for Indian software professionals in

countries like USA, UK, Germany, Singapore, Japan. To fulfil India’s and other

countries demand, many initiatives have been taken by India. The newly set-up

IIIT’s and Nasscom’s ICPI (Indian Computer Professional Institute) would

churn out additional 25,000 software professionals by the end of the year 2002.

In addition many new MCA (Master of Computer Applications) courses have been

started in various universities. Also, many private training institutes have

also started high-level software engineering courses.

In order to understand the requirements of the Indian software industry for

the next few years, NASSCOM initiated has initiated this HRD study in March

2000. Highlights of the initial findings of Nasscom’s study are as follows:

• The number of software professionals employed has increased to 340,000 in
  
  1999-2000 compared to 1,60,000 in 1996-97. This figure includes software and
  
  dotcom professionals employed with vendors, professionals in non-commercial
  
  organizations as well as in software development units in user
  
  organizations.
• Companies have projected a demand for another 140,000 knowledge workers
  
  between 2000 and 2001 (two years) i.e. about 60,000 more professional for
  
  the year 2000 and another 80,000 for the year 2001. Around 73,000-85,000 new
  
  software engineers are currently available to the industry on an annual
  
  basis. Thus, there are just about adequate skilled engineers in the country.
  
  This means that, the job market can remain tight but can also ease over a
  
  period of time, provided the Government and Industry take relevant measures
  
  at the earliest. However, in addition to 73,000 - 85,000 fresh engineering
  
  graduates, another 40,000 - 50,000 professionals are available of similar
  
  standard from MCA courses and private training institutes.
• The mood in the industry clearly indicates that even if the current
  
  manpower pool is increased ten fold over the next five years, it will be
  
  absorbed by the industry. According to a recently published Nasscom-McKinsey
  
  report, India will require a minimum of 2.2 million workers by 2008.
  
  According to Nasscom, new initiatives will have to be taken by government
  
  and industry to fulfil the supply of 2.2 million knowledge workers by 2008.
• According to Nasscom survey, almost 68 percent of the software
  
  professionals employed in the industry, were in software development and
  
  operations, 14 percent in marketing, 16 percent in support and 2 percent in
  
  other activities.
• The overall median age of the software professionals was about 25.3 years.
  
  81 percent of software professionals in software companies were men and 19
  
  percent were women. However, this ratio is likely to be 65:35 (male :
  
  female) by 2005.
• 63 percent of the software professionals or knowledge workers possessed
  
  five years of working experience.
• There was an average rise of 16 percent rise in basic salary in 1999 over
  
  the previous year (this was the lowest rise ever recorded since 1992).
• In 1999, although the attrition rate was controlled at 14 percent (from
  
  the earlier turnover rate of 25 percent in 1992 or 17 percent in 1998), it
  
  was fuelled by a 50 percent growth in the revenue of the software industry
  
  in 1998-99.
• Indian Knowledge workers were highly rated by their employers in India and
  
  abroad for their quality. Most gave them an average of close to 9 on a 10
  
  point rating scale.
• The skills currently in demand were in the area of business applications
  
  of software development, communication software, Application Service
  
  Providers (ASPs), web based applications, software engineering, networking
  
  applications, e-commerce, Java, data warehousing and datamining, lnternet,
  
  client-networking, Windows, Linux, project management, quality assurance,
  
  technical writing, legacy systems, etc.