Hyderabad: Information technology and retail sector have the potential to be two major job creators in the country in the next five years, according to Dr Ganesh Natarajan, the Chairman of Nasscom. IT sector has a potential of creating five million jobs while retail sector may create about 2.5 million jobs in the next five years.

"If one brings in the 4X factor, that is every job in the main sector creates four more in-related services business, these sectors have immense potential over the next five years," Dr Natarajan said.

Speaking at the ReTechCon, the annual Retail Technology Conclave here, he said that the IT sector now employs about 2 million people directly and another 8 million indirectly. "These projections may be difficult to believe. If one goes back 20 years, it would have been difficult to envision then that we would achieve $100 million in exports. But today, IT sector is a $63 billion industry in India. The current trends indicate that we will continue to grow at about 25 to 30 percent a year," he said.

Likewise, the retail sector is seen to be emerging as next major employer in the country, and significantly its impact is likely to cover a wider geographical footprint unlike IT sector, wherein about 95 percent of the current jobs are accounted by the top 10 cities.

Markets such as India, China and Vietnam are seen to be driving the next wave of retail growth. Interestingly, unlike in the past, we have interesting case studies of retail industry success for other markets to emulate, he said.

Technology is set to play a significant role as a predominantly unorganised retail seeks way to be part of the organized business. It is estimated that there are over 10 million kirana shops in the country and all of them, in fact, need some sort of automation/IT to stay competitive. The technology industry is innovating to offer them services and bring them on to the organized sector.