Unemployment has been a major concern for the individuals as well as the government for a long time now. Along with increasing number of unemployed and unemployable youth, another problem has surfaced in front of the government and that includes Automation.
According to HfS Research, a US based research firm, the Indian IT sector will lose over 7 lakh jobs to automation in the next 5 years. The sectors which will be most affected by automation include the ones where low-skilled professionals are currently working. The report also stated that worldwide, IT industry will reduce its headcount by 7.5% and the most affected countries will include the US, UK and India.
Apart from the lost jobs, the research report also highlighted a bright spot. According to which, approximately 3 lakh new jobs will be created in the upcoming 5 years for medium and high skilled professionals. Philippines will, however, register an increase in the total headcount working in IT sector.
According to the report, major reasons behind the loss in headcount include aggressive implementation of robotics process automation. However, the report clarified that automation is decreasing low-skilled headcount and at the same time, it is responsible for increasing the demand for high-skilled job count by 57%.
While giving the concluding points of the report, the agency stated that over 7 lakh individuals will have to be re-skilled in order to be retained by their employers.