Also in this letter:
■ Flipkart launches Spoyl to target GenZ
■ Tech firms pause layoffs, but no restart in hiring
■ Cognizant splits growth markets role
Staffing companies estimate that about 60,000 direct jobs are likely to be created in India in the next 6-12 months to cater to the manpower demands of leading mobile handset makers.
Driving the news: Teamlease Services has more than 5,000 positions in mobile manufacturing, with more in the pipeline, said Kartik Narayan, chief executive-staffing. Ciel HR Services has about 2,000 positions with more demand coming in, said CEO Aditya Narayan Mishra. The bulk of the hiring is in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Delhi-NCR.
Who wants the manpower? Foxconn, Wistron and Pegatron — contract manufacturers for Apple — are among those that will scale up manpower. Electronics manufacturing services firm Dixon Technologies as well as Tata Electronics may also step up hiring, staffing firms said.
Roles in demand: Electronics/electrical technicians, information technology specialists, assembly operators, line supervisors, mobile assemblers and engineering managers will be in demand. Data engineers, quality-control inspectors, supply-chain managers and logistics coordinators will also be needed across the mobile handset manufacturing landscape.
Digital economy to contribute over 20% of India’s GDP by 2026: Mos IT
India’s digital economy is expected to contribute more than 20% to the country’s Gross Domestic Product in 2026, minister of state for electronics and information technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar said on Thursday, while addressing the ‘G20 Digital Innovation Alliance Summit’ in Bengaluru.
Great expectations: Stating that India adopted technology not just for innovation in a broader sense, but to deliver real solutions, Chandrasekhar said, “The digital economy has gone from 4-4.5% of the total GDP in 2014 to 11% of the total GDP today. And we expect the digital economy to contribute over 20% of our GDP by 2026.”
Rise of open-source systems: ‘The centre of gravity of tech’, which used to be in a few countries and centred around a few corporations, is moving to open-source systems, and younger and younger startups are disrupting the normal, the minister said. Such trends are capitalising on the broader wave of digitisation, he added.
Digital India gets a boost: IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Wednesday said the Union Cabinet had approved the extension of the Digital India scheme for a period of five years, until 2025-26, with an outlay of Rs 14,903 crore.
Ecommerce major Flipkart on Thursday unveiled Spoyl, a new offering aimed at GenZ users. It will be inside the main Flipkart app and available as an “app-in-app”, the firm said. About a quarter of Flipkart’s shoppers are GenZ users, born between 1997 and 2012, the company said in a statement.
Tell me more: Spoyl will focus on this segment, offering over 40,000 products, across categories such as westernwear, accessories, and footwear. The drive for GenZ customers comes as Flipkart tries out a number of other experiments on its platform, such as live commerce and an AI assistant. Though they’re yet to make a sizable impact, the ventures are intended to increase customer engagement with the platform.
Following Myntra: In May, Flipkart-owned fashion platform Myntra launched its own GenZ-focused app-in-app shopping vertical, called FWD. Myntra also launched a programme for students to access special deals in relation to FWD last week, called “FWD Campus Tribe”.
Other players: Flipkart’s and Myntra’s efforts to tap into GenZ users also come at a time when multiple platforms and brands such as Virgio, Stumbl, Zouk and Snitch, have been scaling up operations to tap this segment. GenZ is believed to be a bigger spender on fast fashion than traditional users.
Also read | Building India’s Shein: why investors are backing a new wave of fashion ecommerce startups
Tech companies, which have had a tough year amid the economic downturn, haven’t yet ramped up hiring after steep workforce reductions over the past year. However, job cuts in the industry appeared to slow in June and July and are on track to be even lower in August, according to a report by research firm Jefferies.
Hiring, but cautious: The data showed that the number of jobs open in the tech industry remains tepid, mirroring trends in the broader economy of a softening in demand for workers.
Layoffs galore: The tech sector had some of the earliest and steepest headcount cuts as the economic downturn forced the industry to cut costs. So far this year, 342,671 people have lost their jobs in the tech industry, according to Jefferies and TrueUp, well above the 243,075 laid off over all of last year.
Also read | Headcount at big 4 Indian IT companies dips in Q1
Expertspeak: “The shifting workforce dynamic will require lower-skilled workers who are being squeezed by AI to re-skill and up-skill for new job opportunities,” Jefferies analysts, led by Brent Thill, said in a note accompanying the analysis.
Cognizant chief executive Ravi Kumar S
Software major Cognizant has split its global growth markets (GGM) leadership role and promoted two senior executives following the exit of president Rob Walker last month.
Who’s who? The GGM role is now split between Manoj Mehta, an 18-year company veteran and current global head of large deals, and Jane Livesey, CEO, Asia Pacific, according to an internal mail sent to employees.
Both executives will be joining Cognizant’s executive committee.
Catch up quick: The appointments come in the wake of multiple senior-level exits over the last few months. Apart from Walker, Anil Cheriyan quit his position as executive vice president of strategy and technology. In May, chief people officer Becky Schmitt also stepped down.
Today’s ETtech Top 5 newsletter was curated by Megha Mishra in Mumbai and Gaurab Dasgupta in New Delhi.
