69,000 Indian Will Lose Jobs Because Of This Technology

Even as Indian IT firms corner a large chunk of the market that arises from services related to the internet-of-things, the country will lose about 69,000 jobs until 2021 due to the adoption of the technology, a report by consulting firm Zinnov said.

This number is over and above the hundreds of thousands of jobs that experts say will be lost due to automation in IT and will predominantly impact unskilled and blue-collar workers.

“Internet-of-things technology will impact 120,000 jobs in the country by 2021. 94,000 jobs will be eliminated, and 25,000 jobs will be created in the five-year period,” Hardik Tiwari, engagement lead at Zinnov, told ET.

Internet-of-things (IoT) is the term used to describe the addition of sensors and chips to machinery which allows them to the monitored and controlled over the internet.

People working in areas such as office administration, support staff and those in maintenance will see their roles being taken over by technology. The new jobs created will be IoT product managers, robot co-ordinators, industrial programmers and network engineers.

Newer technologies are expected to constrict job supply in some areas. In July, research firm HfS predicted that India’s IT services industry would lose 6.4 lakh”lowskilled” jobs to automation in the next five years.

The HfS report stated that though “low-skilled” jobs will fall by 30%, “mediumskilled” jobs will increase by 8% and high-skilled jobs will rise by 56%.

Indian firms currently have about 40% of the addressed IoT services market a share that is expected to rise to 44% by 2021, as they boost their capabilities through acquisitions.

But the addressed market of $2.8 billion, currently, is just a fraction of the overall IoT services market of $66 billion, as companies are not as yet outsourcing their spend. The addressed market is expected to reach $7.3 billion in 2021.

The Indian domestic market contributes $1.6 billion to the overall IoT market, the report said, and is expected to grow to $3.8 billion in the next five years. Indian corporates are leading the charge in spending on IoT, accounting for 80% of the spend.

The government contributes just 20% to the domestic IoT market.