Because the IT structure is driven by technology, hiring right tech talent is a great challenge. Only 29 per cent of tech companies believe they have the right team to progress. And, this is just the beginning, says Vinay Krishna Gupta
We live in a continually changing world where new technologies like Artificial Intelligence and machine learning keep evolving. On one hand, rapid automation has led to a loss of 60 million jobs in the US alone. But, on the brighter side, it has been estimated that the future tech-driven economy will create close to 97 million jobs worldwide.
2021 has been great for the Indian tech industry, especially the startup ecosystem. Indian startups have raised more than $33 billion this year, which amounts to more than the past three years, combined. However, there is a cause of concern—talent crunch. Did you know that there can be more than 80 million jobs that can go unfilled because of a lack of the right talent?
Because the IT structure is driven by technology, hiring the right tech talent is a great challenge. Only 29 per cent of tech companies believe they have the right team to progress. And, this is just the beginning. The coming years would see more talent crunch as technology will evolve each day challenging the tech companies to up their game to keep up. There are headlines daily about how robots are ready to do everything that a human brain can and at a much faster pace. Additionally, the pandemic has slowed down the hiring process. Because of the talent crunch, organisations are facing a huge loss in terms of failing to develop projects on time and meeting important deadlines. The current employees are overburdened, the pandemic forced everything to go digital, and so corporates had to augment their existing workforce with skilled tech resources.
In the past year or so, it is definite that you might have heard of the Great Resignation of 2021. More and more people are quitting their jobs to do something better, or altogether change their careers. But if that is happening, why are businesses facing such a shortage when it comes to tech talent? The reasons can vary from sector to sector. One of the main reasons workers left the workforce was to take care of their children. Schools have been shut for the longest time, and unfortunately, more women have quit their jobs because of gender imbalance. Another factor may be the fact that more and more workers started embracing remote work models as compared to traditional ones, resulting in an acute shortage of the right people for IT industries.
The truth is that the industry is evolving each day, and it’s getting difficult for the educational sector to keep up, contributing as one of the factors for talent crunch. New technologies have emerged, but the college curriculums have remained the same. Students need early exposure to futuristic technologies, and our system seems to be slow.
Talking about the hiring process, gone are the days when people were hired because of something that looked good on paper. Now, talent and skill set are the priorities. The mission and vision of the candidates are the priorities. Now, companies also have to ensure that the person doesn’t find reasons to leave immediately after joining. So, the hiring process, like technology, has evolved.
The tech talent crunch is expected to grow in the near future because technology is never going to stop. The market is hypercompetitive and the pandemic is stubborn. Even before the pandemic, we were in the midst of a digital shift, and now it has accelerated. With speculations like the talent crunch expected to continue for a decade, only time will tell how companies weather this storm.