IT Sector job losses – Opportunity not crisis
Newspapers and online media are awash with the impending doom of IT Industry primarily in India. Automation, protectionism, unionism and the poor quality of graduates that add to the woes of untrainable resources. All of this is true, and the picture can be even grimmer. But wait! Did we all not see such changes earlier?
Every hundred meters a PCO greeted the caller a decade back. Slowly the PCOs gave way to mobile recharge when everyone started having their personal cell phones and did not need to walk down to a PCO to make a call. Then came ‘online recharge’ and the shops started selling mobile phone accessories. Is this not sounding familiar to what we have been witnessing all along in our lives “CHANGE.”
Change hurts the most to those who are ill prepared to accept it. It is never the change that is painful, but the resistance to accepting it is. Zeroing down to Indian IT market, we all have started experiencing the impact of change. The positive side of change has been far more impactful than the negative. We have shopping on our fingertips, taxi is just a click away and that too far cheaper. Choices we have of shopping, doctor consultation, communication, home services, learning options and so much more are overwhelming. The list of such individual empowerment is only growing by every passing day and are making our lives far easier than we ever thought. The yellow hailing cabs are getting replaced by app-based taxi services rapidly. It impacted the drivers, but they adopted the new form. The shops who had PCOs adapted to become mobile sellers and the pace of change managed to modify the thinking and resistance of those who wanted to remain fixed in the position they thought is a permanent safety.
IT Jobs of yesteryear had served their purpose well over three decades similar to what typewriters did since 1874 till 2011. Long years of comparatively easy money even for an undeserving person, has done a lot of harm already to the abilities of hard work and sense of learning of large section of graduates. It is time to come out of the mindset of entitlement and demand. The reset button has been pressed for Indian IT sector, and it is not the government or the IT companies who are responsible for protecting the jobs, but everyone has to find value in the new era of technology. It is probably the best time to start new ventures and generate jobs rather than seeking one. I did that when I started SRKay Consulting Group a year back and now have created more than a hundred jobs. My ventures are going to generate thousands of more opportunities. One has to remember; change is the only constant, and every moment somewhere, someone in this world is working very hard to replace your job. Look forward to a positive change and be part of the change.
