Layoffs still commonplace in India, IT sector worst-hit: Report

India has been one of the biggest employment creators globally but hiring has ‘plummeted’ recently and the spectre of job layoffs is hitting both big and small companies. Photo: Priyanka Parashar/Mint

Mumbai: Even as the economy grows, job layoffs continue to remain “commonplace” with the automation prone IT sector employees experiencing more pain than the others, a report said on Friday.

The report comes amid fears of “jobless growth” being witnessed in the country at present.

“Even as the economy improves, layoffs—due to cost cutting, reducing redundancies after a merger or acquisition, and restructuring events due to changes in the industry—remain commonplace,” career transition company Risesmart said in a report after interviewing 1,000 executives.

“The survey concluded that employees in the IT sector experienced more layoffs in comparison to employees in other industries,” a statement said.

It, however, did not elaborate by quantifying the responses across sectors.

In May last year, then Union labour minister Bandaru Dattatreya had confirmed fears of the “jobless growth” by stating that the economic growth was not translating into rise in employment opportunities.

“The current growth is a jobless growth. Many European and Asian countries, including India, are facing it...growth is being reported but it is not reflecting in employment generation,” he had said.

The government and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had later explained that jobs created in sectors such as tourism and aviation were not counted for the purpose.

India has been one of the biggest employment creators globally but hiring has “plummeted” recently and the spectre of job layoffs is hitting both big and small companies, said the Risesmart statement.