Acute job crunch in US IT field

By W.Chandrakanth

HYDERABAD, JAN. 31. Those seeking jobs on HI visas in the US through consultancy services beware! A severe job crunch this week is forcing several companies to go in for huge lay-offs.

Lucent has laid off 10,000 workforce in this week alone and AT and T, another 3,000. Motorola (2,500), Informix (500), Gateway (3,000), CNN (3,000) Nortel Networks (2,000) are other companies which took a cue from some of the leading companies and resorted to lay-offs, according to information reaching here.

Motorola is expected to lay off another 10,000 employees if the same situation continues in the next two to three weeks, according to observers in the software field.

Though this trend has caught everyone by surprise, it is the freshers who are arriving in the USA who are probably going to be hit the most by the crunch. Those proceeding to the dreamland with a mere `get-through' qualification holding proficiency certificates of some courses and not sufficient experience are the ones to be the hardest hit as they may have to be on the `bench' for an indefinite period.

The established ones in the field have already circulated a warning to Indians through e-mails and are asking them not to waste money on consultancy services for the time being.

"Unless, one is already holding a job in India in some company or the other and is on deputation, please do not venture into the untested waters. The situation is real bad here. Wait till it cools down a bit, we shall let you know. Be in touch with your friends and well wishers before falling prey to the designs of the fixers", is the warning they send down to the people here.

The irony is that global demand for high quality IT professionals is growing rapidly and existing programmes offered by the universities are unable to meet the requirement both in terms of the number of professionals and their skills in handling the latest technologies.

The challenges that the software experts are now facing cannot be met by "half-baked experts who spend time learning in dingy tenements with one or two outdated PCs and with the help of inexperienced teachers. What the companies are now looking for is quality material and paying a little more they can get more work done by the genuine professionals", observes a top-notch HRD expert on the scene.

The US Bureau of Labour had projected that over the next 10 years the top five fastest growing occupations will all be IT-related. It was also estimated sometime back by it that in the US alone there would be a requirement of three lakh IT professionals during the period.

"But, this does not mean that they are ready to take anyone and everyone", says another expert.

They advise people to explore opportunities in other countries, instead of blindly queuing up before the US Consulates. The opportunities in Germany and Japan and other European countries are many though the pay may be a little less.

India in general and Andhra Pradesh in particular have traditionally been major contributors of software professionals to the global IT industry. In all 23 per cent of IT professionals in India come from Andhra Pradesh according to a survey of NASSCOM sometime back. So, better watch out before taking the big leap.

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