The Indian IT industry crossed the $200-billion mark in revenue this fiscal, creating a watershed moment for India’s technology services sector, according to a report by NASSCOM.
It has also cemented its position as the biggest private-sector employer in India, accounting for 5 million direct jobs, with over 2 million added in the last 2 years. Of this, 450,000 was added in the FY2022 alone, the highest addition ever as companies stepped up hiring to meet the rising demand. Close to 1.8 million were women employees, with 200,000 hired in FY22, according to the Strategic Review report released by the IT industry body NASSCOM on February 15.
The industry includes IT services, BPM and captives, added $30 billion in incremental revenue and grew 15.5 percent, highest ever since 2011. This came at the back of rapid pace of technology adoption and migration to cloud post-pandemic boosted the demand for outsourcing services.
The report estimates that the fiscal year 2022 revenues for the Indian technology services are going to be $209 billion, with 30-32% of the growth coming from digital. With the industry growing at 11-14%, the sector revenue is projected to reach $350 billion by the year 2026, the report revealed.
It witnessed double-digit growth across sub-sectors, the highest in a decade. $178 Billion exports contributed to 51% share of India’s services exports, with the domestic tech market pegged at over $50 billion.
Union Minister for IT Ashwini Vaishnaw, said during the report launch that the industry’s strength has given more confidence to the global economy about the Indian IT industry and is also evident in the $200 billion milestone the industry has now crossed. Vaishnaw had also pointed out the efforts made by the sector in the employment addition, as it added 4.5 lakh people this year.
This momentum is going to continue
According to the 2022 NASSCOM CEO Survey, 70% of the CXOs surveyed expect 2022 to be another year of growth driven by digital, and 80% expect the hiring momentum to be the same as last year. The report said that hiring from campuses and non-engineering talent will increase in 2022, with digital talents accounting for up to 50%.
Talent is a challenge
While talent is one of the key challenges the industry is facing, the report said that with the tech talent demand supply gap at 21.1 percent which is the lowest in the world.
Speaking to media persons during the launch of the report, Debjani Ghosh, President, NASSCOM, said that the industry body is working with the industry and academia to address the issue.
The shift towards hiring people from the tier-2 and tier-3 cities which has now become a key focus area for the companies, will also help bridge the talent supply gap and efforts are on to address the same. For instance, Tech Mahindra’s CEO & MD CP Gurnani in a recent interview said that the company expects 20 percent of the workforce to be from the tier-2 and tier-3 cities in the next 2 years.