Eminent space scientist G Madhavan Nair said today the IT boom is going bust with increasing automation leading to shrinking employment opportunities for freshers even as he favoured Indian companies focussing on creation of high end jobs and the domestic market.
The former Indian Space Research Organisation chairman said he had mentioned a couple of years ago that the so-called IT boom would go bust and "that is the phenomena we are now seeing".
"The recruitment for freshers (IT engineers) last year was reduced and this year in many places it has come to zero, that means that type of job opportunities are not there," Nair told PTI here.
"Many of the jobs which we are doing from India...Those are all amenable for automation. Tasks like database management could be fully automated, and servers are getting increasingly more powerful, a scenario where we don't need manual intervention," he said.
The former Secretary, Department of Space and Chairman of Space Commission also said increasing use of computer-aided machine tools and robots in factories and manufacturing plants is leading to the reduction in manual labour content.
"So, in this scenario if India has to survive, we have to move to high-end jobs," added Nair, during whose tenure of six years at the helm of ISRO, 25 successful space missions were accomplished.
"We have the potential, our people are really talented and got right genetic mould. But we are not looking at some killing applications in science and technology," he said.
"Everybody is satisfied with doing some ordinary things and unless we challenge ourselves, we will be left out," he said.
Though increasing automation and use of artificial intelligence, machine-learning and robotics are likely to shave off a significant number incremental job opportunities, particularly for freshers and mid-level managers, Nair said, he sees a "silver lining" as India's requirements in terms of products and services are huge.
He opined that big 'desi' companies should focus on Indian scenario and tap the "phenomenal" domestic market which is bigger than European or American one.
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