In what seems to be a blessing in disguise for the information technology (IT) industry, attrition rate has drastically fallen in the information technology, IT-enabled services and the BPO sector from a high of 60 per cent last year to just 20 per cent this year

By Syed Akbar
Hyderabad: In what seems to be a blessing in disguise for the
information technology (IT) industry, attrition rate has drastically
fallen in the information technology, IT-enabled services and the BPO
sector from a high of 60 per cent last year to just 20 per cent this
year.

According to a study by apex industry body ASSOCHAM, the rate of
attrition at all levels of the organisation has seen a fall ranging
between 45 and 50 per cent between January and June this year, mostly
due to a fragile global economy. At present, the attrition rate is 15
to 20 per cent, while it was 55 to 60 per cent last year.

ASSOCHAM representatives interacted with about 300 job consultants,
recruitment professionals, HR specialists, industrial psychologists
and administration officials at various companies in the domain of IT,
ITeS and BPO at six leading centres – Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad,
Gurgaon, Noida and Pune to ascertain the extent of movement in the job
market.

“An uncertain global economic environment together with cross-currency
fluctuation has compelled the employees to adopt a wait and watch
policy leading to a sharp decline in the attrition levels in the
IT-BPO sector which has been grappling with talent crunch due to
shortage of competent managers at middle and senior management for
quite sometime,” said Mr DS Rawat, secretary general of ASSOCHAM while
releasing the findings of the study.

The fall in the attrition levels is proving to be fruitful for the
organizations facing economic headwinds as expenses incurred on
recruitment of new staff together with their training and orientation
process and more importantly the amount of time spent have come down
drastically, highlights the ASSOCHAM survey.

Attrition level is at the minimum of about five per cent amid
employees with a working experience of over 10 years, while it was
about 7-10 per cent amid employees having 5-10 years experience and it
was about 15-20 per cent amid employees having less than five years’
work experience.