Employment: IT sector

Ratna M. Sudarshan and Rajib Nandi

Institute of Social Studies Trust, New Delhi

MOLE/ ILO National Technical Consultation on Employment Policy for India, 21-22 May 2008

Context: Rapid expansion of work opportunities

- Continued high rates of growth of the sector- Domestic + External Demand- Business Process Outsourcing to India:

medical transcription, legal processes, call centres….

IT industry

Three broad sectors: (i) the IT-producing sector, which consist of the

software and services, hardware and peripherals;

(ii) the IT-enabled sector; and (iii) IT-using sector

Impact on Business Transactions

Reduction in intermediaries with B2C transactions (Business to Consumer) - virtual markets through websites

B2B (Business to Business) outsourcing - activities ranging from software programming to customer care in call centres

Diversity in Employment (NASSCOM-Deloitte 2008)

- Large IT/ITES firms have 33-50% employees from non-metro/ rural areas

- 64 % of companies surveyed employ people with disabilities

- 75 % of indirect employment filled by SSC/HSC or less educated persons

Women in IT sectorWomen currently 30 % of all, likely to increase to 45 % by 201090 % of companies surveyed offer fleible hours; 59 % offer work from home option (NASSCOM 2008)

Persisting barriers – Access to Internet technologies – out of 1.4 m internet connections, 1.3 are in 5 states Karnataka, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Delhi – even here largely excludes rural/ semi urban areas (Mitter 2002) Language of the internet Credit or finance Technical and business skills

Women in IT sector

Some evidence of a carry-over of the existing gendering of work Women concentrated towards the low-skilled end

of the spectrum Entry and manipulation of data Jobs requiring communication skills – call centres, public

relations promotion

Can pre-existing gender segmentation be reduced by new opportunities

Position by gender (source: Rothboeck et al 2001) – indicative data

32.8767.13total

5.5694.4Project manager

2575Consultant

45.3154.69Programmer/ software engr

6040Call service

Femalemaleposition

Informality in the IT Enabled Service segment

Low end: ITES: call centres, medical transcription, back office work processing, data entry etc.

According to one study 70% of workers in ITES are in unorganised sector (Sarkar et al 2005)

No adequate gender disaggregated statistics on employment are available; however an estimated 40 % of jobs in the ITES are taken by women

Mobility within ITES

Entry at low end of this segment relatively easy – field evidence

Mobility at work will require computing skills + knowledge of content

Some Issues for Employment Policy Growth of sector is market led Corporate initiatives largely restricted to formal/

organised sector Need to recognise large and expanding informal

segment within ITES Skill upgradation to encompass IT skills + content Map IT on to other growing sectors Women's participation will continue to be mediated

by availability of child/ elderly care support Challenge: enabling collective voice even when

location of work is dispersed and home based