| | AUGUST 20198SKILLS ON THE RISE IN THE IT INDUSTRY IN 2019A Graduate Research Assistant from Kansas State University, Narayan has worked across an array of companies such as Sprint, Verizon, EFI, and Harix Systems, and even incepted ZESTA Technology Group and BridgeLabz.Technology today is evolving at the most rapid pace ever. It is no wonder that the demand for skills pertaining to the latest technologies are at an all-time high, too. Forbes recently listed ma-chine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) cloud amongst the top 10 digital skills. Addition-ally, according to a McKinsey report, 25-50 million emerging tech jobs are going to be created within the next 12-15 years. Of these, India alone needs to produce six million to 12 million jobs.The existing demand-supply gap for these skills, however, affected the industry's performance in 2018. According to NASSCOM, this was due to the shortage of 140,000 skilled techies for 500,000 jobs available in the industry across verticals. This unmet demand has consequently led to an increase in the salaries of fresh and experienced talent in the field by as much as 60-80 percent. Talent is the biggest emerging theme that will define the next battleground.According to a Wipro report, several large conglomerates, including TCS and Capgemini offer packages of up to 6-7 lacs to freshers if they are equipped with the relevant digital skills. Therefore, while in totality there is a huge demand and fat paychecks are up for grabs, it is increasingly becoming difficult to get more of this scarce resource. But unlike the U.S., where there are only two percent engineers available and hence only one in four job positions being filled, India has the largest pool of software engineers in the world. India also has the largest number of engineers graduating per year.The area India needs to improve is investing in the upskilling of available talent pool. And, rightly so, this area is getting the maximum focus, both By Narayan Mahadevan, Founder, BridgeLabz THOUGHT LEADERSHIPNarayan Mahadevan
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