COVID 19 IMPACT ON THE IT INDUSTRY






How did the IT industry survive the virus? Why were there very few layoffs and LWPs for the employees of IT companies as compared to other Industries? How did people working in the IT industry adapt to new style of work? And how are people still being hired in IT companies? Ever had these questions? If yes, then your answer lies in the following paragraphs. 


COVID 19 aka Corona Virus Disease has literally wreaked havoc in the world. Emerging from Wuhan, China in January 2020, it spread in the world like a wildfire. It affected every single country in the world and in March 2020, WHO declared it a Global Pandemic.  The virus spread among people even if a person merely came in contact of an infected person. This way the virus spread exponentially, putting sever pressure on the health infrastructure of the countries and their frontline health workers , leading the governments of nearly every country of the world to take drastic steps to control the spread of the virus. The term ‘LOCKDOWN’ was introduced in lives of the common people. Meaning the people could not leave their homes, had to stay indoors, away from other people, and clearly meant the people could not go out to work, to earn their bread & butter. 


This simple 8 letter word – Lockdown - severely crippled major economies of the world. It impacted every single industry of the world in different intensity. Industries which required people to be physically present at their work locations took a huge impact. Travel, tourism, Aviation sector, hotels, restaurants and related industries were affected the most as people were not even allowed to leave their homes. Next hit industry was Entertainment, Malls, Theatres, Clubs & Gyms.  Third severely hit industry was the Manufacturing and Automobile Industry. 


Here’s a table which shows statistics of India’s sector wise Impact. Source - https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/india/getting-ahead-of-coronavirus-saving-lives-and-livelihoods-in-india


                                    



As per the table, most of the industries suffered major losses. But here we are talking about one industry which emerged strong and held its reputation high. Yes, that’s correct. It is the IT INDUSTRY. 


IT Industry was one of the industries which managed to minimize their losses during the pandemic and the lockdown as compared to other industries. The main reason for this was that the IT Industry changed their modus operandi – the companies adopted ‘Work from Home’ strategies. As soon as the companies realized that this pandemic is not going to be over soon, they changed their strategies of work. Employees were asked to work from their own homes. This kept the company operations going on and IT industry was back on its feet, virtually. Eventually IT applications saw a huge growth in their usage as people realized that they paved a way to move ahead. Let us discuss a few of those applications.


 Few IT Applications which have seen a huge growth.

Following are the applications which have seen a huge growth in their usage during the pandemic.

  1. TELECONFERENCE PLATFORMS

Working from home has caused people and employees of companies to adapt to various new technologies and platforms to keep their day to day work related activities going on. Meetings, team discussions and even R&R ceremonies have been shifted online. Thus Applications like Zoom, Hangouts, Google Meets, and Microsoft Teams etc. have seen a major growth in their daily users. Many companies have even made such platforms as their official means of meetings and communications. These platforms have not just been used for official purpose but also for casual use. Family and friends have been connecting with each other using these applications when places are under lockdown. 

  1. TELEMEDINCE APPLICATIONS

Telemedicine is the use of technology and communication methods to acquire medical consultation from doctors and experts in situations where you cannot physically visit doctor for consultation regarding your problems. Just by using the application, you can consult a doctor, get you medicines prescribed and even order it from an online pharmacy. Amazing, isn’t it?

  1. REMOTE LEARNING & ONLINE COURSES

There is never a stop to learning. Education was shifted from traditional to virtual mode over a fortnight after students were lacking behind in their education. Schools, colleges and private teaching centers and courses changed their means of their methods to online teaching. 

  1. CYBER SECURITY

With so many people working from home, the security of data and other confidential aspects of the company was a major issue leading to an increased usage of tracking, monitoring and surveillance applications of cyber security. This led to development of new applications to ensure data security and integrity. As a result, companies could facilitate more employees working from home.


IMPACT OF COVID 19 ON TECH HIRING & JOBS

Lockdown and the pandemic affected the jobs different industries in different ways. For some, it meant hiring and growth & for some it included furloughs. As seen above, IT Applications were in more demand than ever during the lockdown and are still flourishing. With such an increase in demand, it is quite obvious that the demand for manpower and new employees also increased. So let us now discuss how this pandemic affected the hiring and jobs in IT Industry. 


An article from business Insider dated 5th March 2021 stated that “technology hiring has been consistently above the pre Covid levels during April 2020 to Jan 2021 and peaking in Nov 2020.

Indeed.com Managing Director Sashi Kumar noted, "With the pandemic necessitating 'remote working' and more technology-based business operations, organizations have had to ramp up their tech hiring to support this transition."

He added that this is reflected in the company's data, which shows a steady upward shift. "We believe that digitization and 'virtual' operations will continue to increase in the near future, creating a strong demand for tech-related jobs across sectors."


Another article from Economic Times dated 19th Nov 2020 reported that hiring in the IT industry has been least affected by Covid 19 Pandemic. They stated the following data from a report published by Naukri.com

Top roles that recruiters are hiring for include software developer, tech lead, tech architect, testing engineer, technical content developer, database architect and solution architect.

Roles such as technical content developer, solution architect and database architect have seen 350 per cent, 150 per cent and 100 per cent growth in demand year-on-year.

Java developer, manual testing and business analyst are among the top-searched keywords by jobseekers on the Naukri platform, thereby showing high intent for such roles in the sector.


After reading the data received from multiple sources and articles from these top news agencies, it can be easily concluded that IT industry has shown strong resilience, come out of the Covid losses and is ready to boom and surpass the targets in coming years. Employees are expected to have a safe career in these choppy times and have bright futures ahead. 


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 Wishing everyone a great day. Stay safe and strong. Thank You.

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