Telecom Bloodbath: 60,000 Employees Will Be Fired; These Are The Jobs Which Are Vanishing

First the good news: The worst is over, and 2019 will begin with a new hope for telecom employees, as telecom operators will ramp up hiring for the ‘new-age’ digital skills.

But the bad news doesn’t go away: 60,000 jobs will be removed by end of this financial year, and it’s a bloodbath in the telecom sector.

Never before has the industry been impacted so much.

60,000 Telecom Jobs Will Be Removed

As per latest numbers coming in from staffing service provider TeamLease, by the end of March, 2019, more than 60,000 telecom jobs will be destroyed, and the same number of employees will be without any job.

Staffing firm Randstad has put the numbers between 60,000 to 75,000, and the reason is consolidation. There are 25 lakh employees in the telecom sector.

Paul Dupuis, chief executive officer of staffing firm Randstad India said, “There will be an impact to the tune of 60,000-75,000 jobs on the workforce of telecom service and infrastructure providers in 2019 as a consequence of the consolidation activities,”

As per their calculations, the impact will felt all through 2020 as well.

Which Telecom Jobs Are Vanishing?

As per TeamLease research, two biggest areas where job cuts will be experienced the most are: customer support and financial functions (billing, recovery etc).

Besides consolidation of telecom companies, automation can be another factor which is impacting such huge number of job loss.

Around 8000 employees from customer support, and 7000 employees from financial services will be asked to leave, in the coming months.

As per reports, 150,00 to 20,000 employees have already lost their jobs till September, 2018.

What Is The Reason For Job Loss?

The entry of Jio two years back has shaken the entire industry, and the ripple effect caused by their revolutionary business model will be felt for some more time.

Tata has recently written off Rs 28000 crore from their telecom business, and the merger of Vodafone-Idea has led to the erosion of almost 5000 jobs, pan-India.

Last year, due to consolidation and other factors, we had reported that 30,000 telecom jobs will vanish.

Besides, automation can be another factor here. Recently Airtel announced their partnership with Google Assistant for providing customer support. This trend will only increase with time, and this means lesser jobs for customer service reps.

But.. A New Future Awaits!

Despite this terrible scenario, there is hope for a new future.

With 4G expansion, and soon to be introduced 5G network, there are thousands of new jobs which are being created by telecom operators. Especially in the areas of Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, other related technologies.

Rajan Mathews, director general of the Cellular Operators Association of India, India’s largest, most influential lobby of telecom operators said, “We are over the worst hump and now companies are looking to hire in areas like AI, big data and 4G network expansion. The first two-quarters of FY19 saw the worst and that is over,”

Demand for experts in project management, IT infrastructure will increase.

Newer job profiles such as data team leaders, technical directors, and network installation are already in demand.

Internet of Things and Content creation are other broader areas, where telecom players will invest substantially in coming days.

We will keep you updated, as more details come in.