Less than 5% of India’s techies are ready for higher end AI and cloud computing work

7 of India’s biggest IT companies including Infosys, Wipro and Cognizant are laid off 56,000 engineers in 2017. 2017 layoffs were double the level in 2016. This is because they are not prepared to adapt to newer technologies. Less than 5% of Indian techies are equipped to handle high-skilled jobs.

For several years now, Indian IT firms have anyway been moving away from labor-intensive projects towards more remote and technology-based solutions such as video conferencing, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence (AI). This has resulted in hundreds of entry-level roles like data entry and server maintenance becoming obsolete.

Nearly one-third (700,000) of the low-skilled Indian IT workers are at risk of losing their jobs by 2022.

Hiring was cut as well with entry-level openings having more than halved in 2017.

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and Infosys, two of India’s largest IT companies and once leaders in job creation, reduced their headcounts for the first time ever. Even mid-sized players like Tech Mahindra retrenched several employees.

The USA Protect and Grow American Jobs Act classifies any company that has more 15% of its workforce working on-site as “visa-dependent.” Indian outsourcing companies sometimes have over 50% of their manpower working on-site.