Not ‘overly pessimistic’ on IT jobs, says Patel

‘Growth in start-ups may compensate’

June 22, 2017 09:20 pm | Updated 09:27 pm IST - MUMBAI

Reserve Bank Governor Urjit Patel on Thursday said he is not “overly pessimistic” about employment scenario in the IT sector, and pointed out that mushrooming start-ups could compensate for job losses.

The comments came as industry lobby Nasscom hinted at a slowdown in export revenue growth at 7-8% in 2017-18 as against the 8.6% achieved last fiscal.

There have been reports pointing to big IT firms laying off people and going slow on hiring.

“I think we don’t have to be overly pessimistic at this stage,” Mr. Patel said at an IMC event here amid growing concern over jobs in the $160-billion IT sector.

“While there could be pressure on employment in some of the IT sectors, it is not necessarily in terms of literally a job destruction, but may be the growth rate is affected by what is happening. The number of start-ups in that same space is almost compensating for most of this,” he said.

“When you talk to businesses themselves, I rarely hear about jobs destruction,” Mr. Patel said.

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