A minimum of 85% of today’s Indian software professionals will be unemployed by age of 45 !! This is assuming IT industry does well like it was in 2013-16 and there are no threats from automation/ other countries.
Hard to believe ? Well it is inevitable, as inevitable as death !!
So let us do some quick maths
| Year | # of Employees in Indian IT industry |
|---|---|
| 1995 | 20,000 |
| 2015 | 22,50,000 |
| 2035 | 1,15,00,000* |
Notes
- The projection for 2035 assumes IT industry does “exceeding well” by adding 9% workforce every year (in 2017-18 it is expected to have added sub 5%)
- The number of 1995 is estimated on higher side as no credible data source was available (Infosys was 700 employees and this included onsite employees who were strictly speaking not in India !!) .
So in 2015, ratio of Number of employees with greater than 20 years experience to total number of employees = 1:112 (20,000: 22,50,000)
The above assumes all software professionals of 1995 continue to be employed in Indian IT industry today. In real world, many have left for overseas OR have left the IT industry and equally professionals from other industry joined IT.
Projected demand for 20+ year professionals in 2035
| Ratio | Demand | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1:112 (current ratio) | 1,03,000 | |||||
| 1:80 | 1,45,000 | |||||
| 1:50 | 2,32,000 |
And how many 20+ year professionals we will have ? Well all the 22,50,000 who were employed in 2015 !! Assume 1/3rd of them have retired though that is unlikely situation and we will still have 15,00,000+ software professionals against a maximum demand of 2,32,000 . So a total of 85%
What makes it worse
All assumptions are exaggerated, so actual number could be worse.
Besides there will be threat of automation and other countries building credible alternatives to India !!
Examples which will re-inforce the above conclusion
How many of our families are willing to pay 3X to a housemaid 50 year old versus one 30 year where scope of work is brooming and mopping? An odd exception may be.
Equally why should a company keep a 20 year experienced professional when a 10 year experienced professional gives the same output ? Even if one was to assume that the salaries of both were equal, employers should still prefer 10 year experienced professionals for multiple reasons as they come with lower over heads.
This has happened to infrastructure industry. In late 1960s and early 1970s the engineering in highest demand was Civil Engineering. Good 50 years later we construct more of everything - roads, buildings, airports, metro etc and yet there are no jobs for Civil Engineers !!
So should one do an MBA ?
It is not about the qualification at age of 40. It is more. Having said that story will be equally bad if not worse, especially if you are not from top 10 MBA institutes. Telecom and Banking sector mid career professionals are facing brunt at this point of time.
Who will escape this inevitable ?
Tough to pin point. But out of years of collecting data, we have insights which we share in “Career Insights” section of adda.elitmus.com.
The pre-read to this blog will be Career is a marathon