Nasscom Says 1.4 lakh Jobs Remain Vacant in AI and Big Data Roles in India

A recent Nasscom report highlights around 1.4 lakh jobs remain vacant in the Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Big Data Analytics segment across various sectors in India, out of the total demand of 5.1 lakh employees in the country.

The report mentions around 3.7 lakh jobs are filled by now and the employee deficit would increase to 2.3 lakh by 2021, as the total demand goes up to around 8 lakh employees.

In order to meet the deficit of qualified and skilled employees, Nasscom plans to engage with universities and colleges along with leading IT companies including Wipro and Tech Mahindra to provide relevant skills to around one million employees and another one million prospective employees and students.

"The Future Skills programme which was launched earlier this February ultimately aims to reskill one million professionals along with skilling one million potential employees and students in the industry over a period of five years," the statement said.

Nasscom has a user base of more than 200,000 from member firms committed to re-skilling their employees.  Around 10 Nasscom member companies would be the "pioneers", the industry body said, adding that the second phase would also involve universities and colleges.

Some of the 'pioneers' include Wipro and Tech Mahindra (IT Services), Cyient (Engineering Services), Genpact and WNS (Business Process Management), CGI (Global Capability Center), Purpletalk (Products), Dev-IT and Kellton (small and medium enterprises), as per the statement.

Earlier in July, Nasscom opened a Center of Excellence (CoE) for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence in Bengaluru. Nasscom is also supporting the Indian government's National Strategy for AI and will facilitate collaboration between NITI Aayog and CoEs. Under the strategy, the government plans to offer incentives to startups and venture funds for application-oriented research on AI across key sectors including banking, insurance, education, health, retail, and transportation.

"With the aim to strengthen the country's AI ecosystem, the CoE and MoU, both aim to serve as a platform for intelligence-sharing and technology collaboration between stakeholders to build collective capabilities for the industry and country in the cutting-edge areas artificial intelligence," Nasscom said earlier.