Srinivas Kandula, Capgemini India’s chief executive believes that 60-65% of IT employees are not trainable. At the Nasscom leadership summit in Mumbai, he said that a large number of people employed in the IT cannot be trained according to the shift in nature of work, and India is likely to witness unemployment in the middle and senior level in the future, reports a publication. The Indian division of the French company employs a hundred thousand engineers in the country.

Concerns about the quality of education and training imparted at institutes were also raised, as Srinivas stated that a big chunk of the 3.9 million IT employees come from low-grade engineering colleges, wherein grading patterns for students are inefficient. Noting that the quality of graduates joining the sector is abysmally low, he said that many of them are not able to answer what subjects they were taught in the final semester of their engineering.

He added that since more number of students are hired from lower grade engineering colleges than before, an increase in the wages has been negative by a significant margin. He explained that two decades ago freshers were offered Rs. 2.25 lakh per annum, whereas today they are offered Rs. 3.5 lakh, which effectively means that real wages have decreased significantly, after adjusting for inflation. Furthermore, Kandula also said that the drive to secure returns from their investments has prevented investors from investing in upgrading the skill set of employees according to the changing nature of work in newer, digital technologies.  

The comments add clamour to the chorus that warns the Indian IT sector to brace for tough times ahead, owing to unpredictable global sentiment, advancement in technology and automation.