Employment: IT sector Ratna M. Sudarshan and Rajib Nandi Institute of Social Studies Trust, New Delhi MOLE/ ILO National Technical Consultation on Employment Policy for India, May 2008

Context: Rapid expansion of work opportunities - Continued high rates of growth of the sector - Domestic + External Demand - Business Process Outsourcing to India: medical transcription, legal processes, call centres….

IT industry Three broad sectors: (i) the IT-producing sector, which consist of the software and services, hardware and peripherals; (ii) the IT-enabled sector; and (iii) IT-using sector

Impact on Business Transactions Reduction in intermediaries with B2C transactions (Business to Consumer) - virtual markets through websites B2B (Business to Business) outsourcing - activities ranging from software programming to customer care in call centres

Diversity in Employment (NASSCOM-Deloitte 2008) - Large IT/ITES firms have 33-50% employees from non-metro/ rural areas - 64 % of companies surveyed employ people with disabilities - 75 % of indirect employment filled by SSC/HSC or less educated persons

Women in IT sector Women currently 30 % of all, likely to increase to 45 % by % of companies surveyed offer fleible hours; 59 % offer work from home option (NASSCOM 2008) Persisting barriers –  Access to Internet technologies – out of 1.4 m internet connections, 1.3 are in 5 states Karnataka, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Delhi – even here largely excludes rural/ semi urban areas (Mitter 2002)  Language of the internet  Credit or finance  Technical and business skills

Women in IT sector Some evidence of a carry-over of the existing gendering of work  Women concentrated towards the low-skilled end of the spectrum Entry and manipulation of data Jobs requiring communication skills – call centres, public relations promotion Can pre-existing gender segmentation be reduced by new opportunities

Position by gender (source: Rothboeck et al 2001) – indicative data total Project manager 2575Consultant Programmer/ software engr 6040Call service Femalemaleposition

Informality in the IT Enabled Service segment Low end: ITES: call centres, medical transcription, back office work processing, data entry etc. According to one study 70% of workers in ITES are in unorganised sector (Sarkar et al 2005) No adequate gender disaggregated statistics on employment are available; however an estimated 40 % of jobs in the ITES are taken by women

Mobility within ITES Entry at low end of this segment relatively easy – field evidence Mobility at work will require computing skills + knowledge of content

Some Issues for Employment Policy Growth of sector is market led Corporate initiatives largely restricted to formal/ organised sector Need to recognise large and expanding informal segment within ITES Skill upgradation to encompass IT skills + content Map IT on to other growing sectors Women's participation will continue to be mediated by availability of child/ elderly care support Challenge: enabling collective voice even when location of work is dispersed and home based