Chennai: After a tough year that saw the IT & BPO industry cutting back on hiring, software lobby Nasscom has now given a positive forecast for the next decade. Nasscom estimates that the IT & BPO sector will provide direct employment of 10 million and indirect employment of 20 million by 2020.

Nasscom president Som Mittal said, “There has been a 6-fold increase in direct employment. The number of direct employees in 2001 was around 4.3 lakh and now it has zoomed up to 23 lakh in 2010.” Mr Mittal, who was in Chennai for the Nasscom HR summit 2010, added, “The contribution of the private sector in this regard has seen a 3-fold increase. It has grown from 5% in 2001 to 15% in 2005-06.”

By 2020, the industry expects to have around 5 million women employees on its rolls. Currently, the industry has around 37% women employees and around 26% of the female employees are chief wage earners.

Mr Mittal also stressed the need for adopting best practices in the IT-BPO industry and wanted companies to follow rules like ethical hiring, insisting on relieving letters, campus hiring in eighth semester, support reference checks and mandate background checks for all employees.

“This would help the company and employer. It would ensure that the employee serves his/her notice period correctly with the previous employer,” he said. The industry is also looking at discouraging frequent job-hoppers in less than 6 months. “There are some employees who join an organisation undergo the soft skills and product training and quit. They then go and join another company and do the same. This practice should be strictly discouraged,” Mr Mittal pointed out.

In the coming decade, the industry would witness multi-cultural workforce with 15-20% foreign origin. “Employers would look for talent pool with multiple, specialised domain expertise. They would look for talent with value add capability through innovation and analytics,” he said.