Kochi: COVID-19 has come as a blessing in disguise for the IT industry in India. The growth trajectory of IT companies has been amazing, even during the worst period of the pandemic. The IT firms of all hues are flooded with contracts from across the globe, leading to substantial growth in their assets and profits. It also has led to a sudden spike in employment opportunities for youth.
The story of Kerala is not so different from the rosy picture seen across India. The IT companies, which are based in the cities of Thiruvananthapuram, Kochi and Kozhikode, are enjoying the fruits of the market buoyancy for IT products and IT-enabled services.
Contrary to popular belief, the job opportunities are not restricted to IT Parks alone. With the advent of 'work at home' practise, the IT companies prefer Tier-2 cities like Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram to expensive metro cities like Bangalore for running their campuses. Interestingly, many IT professionals, who had been working in cities like Bangalore earlier, are now working within the confines of their sleepy hamlet in Kerala.
Recently, a multinational company shifted its campus from Bangalore to Kochi. IBM, which ranks among the world's largest information technology companies, is set to launch its Software Development Centre in Kochi.
According to Dr K Mohammed Y Safirulla, Additional Secretary, Kerala IT Department, the three areas where the demand for IT peaked are education, health and retail.
Education sector, hereafter, would witness the continuance of the digital dominance. Education system would be a hybrid one in future with both offline and digital teaching modes sharing the space together, D Safirulla predicted.
He said there was a great jump in the employment prospects for IT professionals in Kerala even though the government did not have exact figures on such a growth.
Job-hopping is rampant in the industry, depending on the needs of the business and change in technology. Experienced professionals have a field day, especially for jobs that need certain specific requirements and technical expertise. In the same way, there is huge demand for freshers too. Companies like TCS and TATA Elxsi began recruiting at campuses in Kerala. Moreover, they are currently on a drive to recruit around 25,000 freshers for manning their various operations.
Most Sought-After Areas
Startup initiatives in areas like Mobile Applications, Cloud, Jawa, Cyber Security and Analytics are now much in demand. Many firms are receiving funds from international foundations and organizations,and Indian technical bodies for carrying out research and operations in these newly developing subjects.
Reasons for Growth in IT Industry
Shift to digital mode: The new-found demand for digital mode has crossed all expectations. This digital demand necessitated the natural growth of the IT sector. From 'work at home to online classes for school and college goers, and from online meetings of political parties and to online businesses, digital modes are increasingly used. All major cash transactions made by the governments and other establishments are now in digital mode.
Increasing foreign orders: As part of cutting expenses, overseas countries started outsourcing their work on a large-scale, benefiting IT firms in India the most. Even a medium-level company is flooded with orders. Believe it or not, most of the major companies have already achieved their growth targets set for the year 2022-23 financial year.