IT’s 2030 staff doubling target looks distant on slump, GenAI

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

Recruitment consultancy Team Lease Digital had earlier estimated that the Indian IT workforce would expand to 10 million by 2030.

Elevate Your Tech Prowess with High-Value Skill Courses

AI-based automation is the significant factor impacting headcount, while macroeconomic factors are cyclical with a revival likely in 2025, said Ganesh Natarajan, former CEO of Zensar Technologies and founder of 5F World, a digital transformation solutions company.

Pointing to the impact of AI on areas such as testing, he said “with ChatGPT and GenAI (generative AI), coding is also getting destroyed.”

Further, maintenance of IT systems will also be taken over as “it’s very easy for a GenAI application to find out the problem and resolve it,” he added.

As a result, these roles, which account for nearly 60% of all IT jobs, could drop precipitously to 15%.

Industry experts are of the view while economic slowdowns are a temporary phenomenon the bigger challenge for the Indian IT services industry is the technology disruption with AI becoming centre stage.

There is a ‘tectonic shift’ underway from growth driven by labour arbitrage to AI-driven tech arbitrage, according to Arvind Thakur a member of the Board of Management at NIIT University who reckons the industry is at an ‘inflection point’.

AI will, however, also