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IT employees feel the prick of slowdown thorn
By siliconindia
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Monday, 22 September 2008, 16:24 IST
Bangalore: Sailing through the murky waters of the Indian IT, the software professionals are becoming more panicky with the collapse of the U.S. financial sector, who is the key customer of IT and BPO firms. The unruly impact of the U.S. slowdown on the IT firms has left the employees in an indecisive state.Tarun, a mid-level executive at an IT services firm says, "There is a considerable amount of apprehension among IT professionals as nobody is sure what would be the direct impact on their jobs."
Moreover, the economizing tendency of the firms who are expected to adopt rigorous cost cutting measures is the main catch behind the increasing fear and the pensive attitude. Adding to it even the recruiters feel that the situation will be more critical than the cloudiness that prevailed in the industry during the dotcom bust. Thus, the incessant slashing of employees and holding on further recruitments can be seen to be in compliance with the observation. "Now is the best chance for companies to offload 'non-performers' as well as those on the bench. Already, companies such as IBM and TCS have reportedly removed some staff, primarily on grounds of poor performance," says Shashi, who works for a small IT firm. Apart from offering pink slips the firms have introduced concepts such as just-in-time inventory and an offline bench.
So, the effect of the downturn has become the buzz word for the techies, and going by this trend Debhashish Haar, a freelance software programmer remarks, "The scene is not as great as it used to be, with topics of downsizing, tepid increments and project delays absorbing all talks." Though in some cases this extreme reaction is yet not viewed like E Balaji of Ma Foi finds no alarming signals though companies are not rushing to hire. Even Adecco India CEO Sudhakar Balakrishnan is of the view that it is too early to talk about employees pressing the panic button.
However, the light in these dark days are seen by the product companies and the start ups who are roping in employees at the minimum cost, in their words its the "right talent at the right price."
