Cognizant’s India Massive Headcount Drop! Revealed In SEC Filing

Every politician speaks of unemployment problem but no one minds about the root cause. If the education system is perfect then automatically students get a job. If not at least they will be confident enough to create jobs with the knowledge they acquired.

These days education system are mostly marks oriented. They look for the number of publishing papers. But no one cares about acquiring practical knowledge not even teachers bother about teaching practical skills in the class. In this scenario, it is not possible to root out unemployment problem ever.

Layoffs

According to Cognizant Company’s latest filing with the US SEC (US Securities and Exchange Commission), its employee strength in India fell by 8,000 in 2017, to a total of 180,000 which is not just a massive decline perhaps also the first decline for India in the company’s history.

However, the company is hiring more in other geographies. In 2017, it added 2,900 in North America, 2,300 in Europe, and 2,600 in other locations. In 2016, its headcount in North America had gone up by 6,700. Clearly, Cognizant is moving more of its people closer to the customer.

 “In 2017, we began a realignment of our business to accelerate the shift to digital services and solutions while improving the overall efficiency of our operations,” the SEC filing said.

When it comes to digital services, certain skills are required closer to the customer. Referring to these skills, chief financial officer Karen McLoughlin told analysts in a call that there was no big price differential for the same set of skills while hiring onshore.

Employee Strength Reduced

The employee realignment has reduced the India employee strength as a proportion of total employee strength to 69% in 2017, from 74% in 2014.

It was reported last year that the IT services company was looking to lay off 6,000 employees. The company itself announced a voluntary separation programme for senior executives. They later said 400 had accepted the package.

For the first time, Indian IT companies are seeing fall in headcounts as Automation and Artificial Intelligence technologies are impacting on the software industry. There is a need to create talent overseas makes investing in India far less important which in turn accounts to a lesser number of jobs. The National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom) has also forecasted lower headcount growth, even as companies expect to hire in the thousands in the US.

R Chandrasekhar, President, Nasscom said, “The IT sector which has been a key job creator in the country will see a net addition of 10,00,000 people in FY19. The sector added a similar amount in FY18, less than the initial projection of an addition of 150,000 jobs”.

He also said it is time to look at sectors other than technology services like IT for employment growth.

This fall in jobs is becoming a cause of concern for potential job aspirants. Industry experts believe that even though the US and European markets are witnessing huge recruitments taking place, Indian IT sector is hiring cautiously. An employee needs to upgrade his skills continue to survive in IT world.

What do you think of this headcount drop? Share us in the comments. But is it really a job security in IT industry? So many cases we have read, people get depressed, we read few cases of suicides as well. The cost of living is increasing and every day to day things are getting costly. Steps has to be taken for job security.