Of job-cuts in IT: the lost pride

Last year, the IT sector saw a boom, with IT professionals being the envy of other sectors because of their salaries touching lakhs of rupees. But suddenly, the IT sector seems to have fallen under an evil eye - the US economic slowdown.

A few months ago everyone was talking about the slowdown in the US economy. And nowadays the most commonly used words in the IT sector are retrenchment, job cuts or layoffs, and cost-cutting - direct effects of the slowdown. Dailies are mostly covered with news about companies' drastically cutting perks, sacking people or even shutting down units.

Indians in Silicon Valley are still fighting the digital carnage of last year. Start-ups, mostly dot-com companies, which could not show a revenue model to support operations, found funds drying up. Cost cutting became the order of the day, with overheads being axed first. Venture capitalists, unsure of returns, began dictating terms. Even IT companies with finances in order and new frontier software to offer found growth rates dipping. All of which meant one thing: lay off.

The less skilled were the first to go. When the dot-com bubble burst, Java programmers, who staff these companies, were booted out. The deepening crisis saw a good number of software professionals 'benched' or in other words forced to cool their heels till projects materialized.

And it's not just the freshers who get kicked around. Even those with supposedly permanent jobs are at the receiving end. Support services staff like human resource, finance, marketing and accounting are being sacked as well.

American technology majors that slashed jobs in the last few months include Cisco, Nortel, Intel and Hewlett Packard. Motorola axed an alarming 22,000 and more employees since December 2000. Siemens, Trigyn, Exodus Communications, Yahoo and i2 Technologies followed with workforce reduction and cost-cuts.

In the US, demand for new IT recruits, according to a survey by the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA), fell by 44 per cent, from 1.6 million in 2000 to 900,000 this year.

Plight of Indian IT professionals in the US

The US slowdown has left many Indian software professionals high and dry. Many have been told to pack off. The worst hit are those who had been body shopped from India to join Silicon Valley start-ups in the US. Some have returned home to their families, while others are still there, stuck with car and house loans to pay back.

The great American dream is fading as hoards of Indian techies in the US have applied to placement services in India, for job openings. Faced with rejection, an insecure future and depleting savings, hundreds are turning homeward every month.

In some companies in the US, sacking is done abruptly where a manager just walks in to announce that he cannot afford you any longer. ID cards don't work, PCs are disabled, passwords are disqualified - just about anything, rather than making it simple and straightforward, to get the message across that one is being kicked out. It's no different in India now.

Say, in California, there are a few options for 'alien technical workers', as software professionals on an H1-B visa are called. He could apply for a new job, but would have to apply for a new visa, too. And while he waits, he's got to find the cash to pay the rent, to buy gas for the car, and to eat. There is a desperate rush to immigration attorneys and community support groups for advice.

There is also a lot of psychological trauma faced by the newly returned NRIs. There is confusion, anxiety and insecurity fuelled by a fluid market situation and negative media reports among the IT professionals returning to India.

Internet guru and author of books on software, Vijay Mukhi, forecast 50,000 software professionals returning to India this year, and that, he said, was the lowest estimate in the industry. Most Indian IT firms and placement companies admit they are getting quite a few resumes from the US every day. However, taking a cue from their US counterparts, Indian IT firms like Infosys and Wipro have frozen recruitment.

Looking for greener pastures

The atmosphere of uncertainty has made professionals think twice before accepting work on a project. They feel safe if the company has clients anywhere other than the US.

And that holds a clue as to how India's famed IT talent should go about the damage control. The European and Asian markets are waiting to be tapped. Europe may not seem a potential market now because the slowdown seems to have spilled over into the continent.

Upgrading skills, looking at new markets and getting into a different line are just a few ideas on how to combat the situation. Of course, endless patience and the right attitude helps.

Source: www.ciol.com