The ever evolving technology and communications industry is now threatening to snatch away livelihood of around 30,000 employees in the coming days.
This unfortunate reality has been supported by leading human resource firms, across the country.
Two major events in the sector is said to be triggering this mass-firing of telco employees: Reliance Communications abruptly stopping their services, and Tata Teleservices selling their business to Airtel.
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Telecom Employees Face The Axe
As per estimates, Tata Tele, Reliance Communications, Aircel, Telenor and Sistema command 20% of the sector’s revenues, and disruption in their business model is causing widespread panic.
Employees from both Reliance and Tata are now facing unemployment, even as the industry as a whole is trying to cope with Rs 8 lakh crore debt, overall.
Besides, the disruption by Jio and subsequent lowering of revenues is adding to the whole crisis, thereby signaling mass-level job loss in the coming days.
As per various departmental heads from TeamLease Services, Manpower Group Services, ABC Consultants, Randstad India and Korn Ferry, close to 20,000 to 30,000 employees can lose jobs in the coming months.
Confirming this bloodbath in telecom, Vivek Mehta, head of the telecom, technology and education practice for ABC Consultants said,
“ Now there’s a bloodbath amid the consolidation and cost-cutting. Mid to senior managers will be most vulnerable, especially on the technical side,”
Whereas Rituparna Chakraborty, co-founder of TeamLease Services said,
“The sector is burdened with an enormous debt — close to Rs 8 lakh crore — and is operating under tremendous pressure after the entry of Reliance Jio with its free-to-dirt cheap-tariff offers,”
5 Trends Which Cannot Be Ignored
Here are 5 trends, as observed across the industry, which cannot be ignored now:
Maximum Job Loss:
Areas where maximum job loss would be witnessed are: Infrastructure & Network Services; Sales and Distribution and Support like HR and Admin. Mid-level jobs and titles such as data entry, tele-calling, ground sales would become obsolete in coming days. Jobs in the range of Rs 1.2 lakh to Rs 2.8 lakh would disappear fast.
Automation/AI Will Dominate
Due to consolidation in the space, and increased Automation, AI and Robotics, several thousand jobs in technical and engineering departments would be washed away. Automation will be increasingly used for cutting costs. Similarly, HR and Admin jobs would be mercilessly cut, so will be customer service, as bots are taking over the niche.
But New Jobs Are Generating
Areas where job will be generated are software defined network, and user experience, as the the motive is now to entice the customer, and build a loyalty, which was ignored earlier. As per Gaurav Burman, principal- global technology, Korn Ferry India, the industry is now moving towards infrastructure as a service model, and this is a paradigm shift in job generation.
Skills In Demand
Skills such as automation, robotics, big data and analytics would be in demand. This is the reason that human resource management firms are stressing on re-skilling employees, and making them compatible with current job market in the telecom industry. For example, user-experience experts for telecom companies are commanding CTCs upto Rs 80 Lakh per year, something which was unheard of.
Alternatives For Telco Employees
Some of the jobs which would be in high demand include radio frequency engineer, system analyst, SAP consultant and embedded hardware developer. Besides, logistics, retail, e-commerce and FMCG sectors are said to be absorbing unemployed telecom employees, so are ISPs and hardware companies.
Are you an employee in the telecom sector? What are the job-trends? Do share your opinions and comments, right here.