Information Technology Workforce

There are many problems faced by India's ever increasing workforce. They consist of some of the brightest new graduates from schools all over India. The problem lies in their ability to work in multinational companies. (26) The country must spend more time and money in investing on infrastructure. They want to spend not only on ICT infrastructure but on the outlying infrastructure as well. This will make the lives of employees in India better and increase their productivity.

India's off shoring sector, the world's largest and fastest growing, is dominated by IT services, which play a major role in the country's overall economic growth. In 2004-05, the Indian offshore IT and business-process-outsourcing industry will generate approximately $17.3 billion in revenues and employ an estimated 695,000 people. By 2007-08, that workforce will consist of about 1,450,000 to 1,550,000 people, and the industry will account for 7 percent of India's GDP. (26)

India's pool of young university graduates (those with seven years or less of work experience) is estimated at 14 million-the largest of all 28 countries MGI has studied. It is 1.5 times the size of China's and almost twice that of the United States. This huge number of young graduates is topped up by 2.5 million new ones every year. As in other low-wage countries, however, only a fraction of these people are suited for work in multinational companies. (26)


(2)

There are many challenges in bringing the Indian education system up to par with the higher ranked schools. Outside of the IIT's and IST's there are very few schools with the resources and ability to generate quality graduates for multinational companies.

According to the study, the Indian ICT sector would face the manpower challenges:

  • Inability of the IT services and ITES-BPO industries to maintain and share common infrastructure facilities across institutions (2)
  • Shortage of skilled faculty for providing relevant, industry-oriented training (2)
  • Inadequate industry exposure (2)
  • Increasing discrepancy between the education focus and the quality of skills developed at top-tier educational institutions and other private and public centers of learning (2)
  • Lack of correlation and synchronization between the existing technical education system and industry requirements—absence of adequate academia-industry linkages (2)
  • Rigidities in the curriculum and evaluation system. (2)

(2)

A major problem facing India with so many educated workers is brain drain. Some believe this is a good thing. As workers leave India and go to America they learn a new corporate culture. They bring back certain knowledge that India would not have otherwise.