Manpower Shortage
Fire fight ahead

India's information technology industry is heading towards a severe shortage of killed manpower. According to a Nasscom-Mckinsey survey, over 8.5 lakh   IT service personnel and 14 lakh ITes-BPO professionals would be in demand by 2010. However, out of 4.4 lakh   technical graduates, nearly 23 lakh other graduates and over 3 lakh post-graduates qualifying every year, only 25 per cent of the technical graduates and a little more than a tenth of the general college graduates are suitable for employment in the offshore IT and BPO.

Leading human resources management Ma Foi explains that demand for skilled labours is natural, as country is witnessing growth at the rate of 8-9 per cent per annum. "It will not be possible for the companies to be serviced all the time from shelf, '' says E Balaji, chief operating officer, Ma Foi "They need to grow their timber as well”. Sudha Kumar, CEO, Prayag Consulting, traces the shortage to the phenomenal growth of the industry, as well as the recognition of India as a global IT majors such as a global hub for IT outsourcing, which has led global IT majors such as Accenture and IBM to ramp up their operations, she adds. B. Santhanam, managing director, Saint- Gobain and chairman of CII committee, who is examining the skill shortages across industries, says: "Quality has suffered only because supply has increased dramatically."

Sadhana Somashekhar, director, marketing operations, Focus Infotech, which concentrates on recruitment to IT Industries, takes the debate to another plane and stresses that India needs to wake up as china is trying to be price-competitive and also make the English language compulsory in the Middle kingdom. "Stakeholders have failed to realise that problems of skill shortages are closely linked to the paradigm shift of Indian IT Industry - from body shopping to consulting to innovations," says Somashekhar.

A cross-section of CEOS of IT firms and HR experts have stated that most of the 'graduates' of today lacked 'soft skills'. Kumar Bashyam, CEO and founder of the Chennai-based SGT India, explains how he found it hard to spot talent, as one in 10 were found employable. “Communication skills are a major shortcoming,” he rues. Even as the top 10 IT companies (such as TCS, Infosys, Wipro, HCL, with larger internal bandwidth) deploy teams to screen quality candidates, with reasonable intelligence in mathematics, logical thinking, and basic English, G. Venugopal of Techruit asserts that 90 per cent of the graduates fall short of industry benchmarks.

Realising that not having an engine of qualified talent pool would mean losing global business opportunities, outgoing Nasscom chief Kiran Karnik had initiated a pyramid approach to tackle the issue. His plan was to extend the Indian Institute of Information Technology’s assessment of competence to IT service sector and IT workforce development (ITWD) programme.

IT firms too are trying to grow and nurture talent to meet their own demands. TCS, which crossed the 100,000 mark in employee strength this year, will hire 2,000 science graduates across the country in the current financial year, to impart soft-skills, customer orientation and project management by blending learning through a mix of broadcast sessions, intensive lab work and workshops. Several private initiatives are emerging to train freshers to adopt and adapt industry benchmarks.