11. Future of Work in Information Technology and the Analytics Industry: Understanding the Demand

Analytics using the Internet of Things (IoT) and data science is slowly becoming an allied industry of IT sector in India. IBM has predicted that demand for data scientists will soar by 28 per cent by 2021. More than 50 per cent of this demand is in finance and insurance, IT and professional services. It is interesting to examine the trade-off in the creation of decent work and automated work in the sector. Trade-offs also exist between the profitability of IT firms and costs of deployment of automation in the sector. Particularly, as automation is likely to reduce the demand for labour, any research on the future of work in the industry can answer important questions on the economic and social contribution of technical progress to the Indian labour market. IoT, Artificial Intelligence, automation and cloud computing can change the labour market dynamics in this industry and there is a need to understand this to estimate the future of work in this sector. The emergence of the new knowledge economy has called for changes in the labour regulations of the industry as the nature of work in such industries is distinct from the traditional industries. The chapter, using both primary and secondary data, aims to study the nature of work in IT-Analytics industry and the labour regulations required to improve and reform the work conditions in the industry. The study also examines the current skill demand in the industry to understand the possible skill gaps in the labour market.