Yes, says a study led by Carol Upadhya of the National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS), Bangalore: 86 per cent of IT employees belong to the upper classes; only five per cent have a rural background. The IT industry, she says, recruits people with a certain "cultural capital".
Stupid, says T.V. Mohandas Pai, the HR head of Infosys: "The industry does not have any bias. We don't hire people on the basis of what their caste is or where they come from but depending on whether they have the requisite skills. We are ready to go to any rural area to recruit people. Why blame the IT industry for not picking people who don't possess the required skills."
Is IT Sector biased towards urban upper class? My personal opinion is NO. but I think ITES sector (BPO sector) may be biased as it requires people with good english vocabulary.
As far as I know, most of the companies go to remote institutes to get people hired. A biased industry cannot make growth of >35% year on year.
There are lot of people who wish to make surveys and pass their results, If the survey is about IT, it catches headlines.
why we dont see a survey as
How many upper caste people are working as Jaadamaalis?
What percentage of love marrages are between upper and lower castes people
What %age of rural people do agriculture?
What %age of OBC are priests?
what %age of OBC population have used reservations?
Ella dabaki survey swami. avaravara moogina nerakke!
In an age of severe competition no industry can commit harakiri. It is war out there and we can not have poor commanders and everyone of them has to be fighting fit. The statstics of 86% is misleading. The basic malaise is that the govt has miserably failed to create good educatiional infrastructure and it has to start from the primary school level and automatically the present percentage will go through sea change in course of time. There is no magic wand to solve the problem. The govt is high on rhetoric and abysmally poor in implementation which is the root of the problem.
Girish is right on target. This survey seems pointless.
I think there is one point that we have to note. IT itself is a ‘urban’ oriented sector not just in India but the world over. So given that, it is a moot point asking whether it is biased towards urban people. There is no doubt the majority of the applicants would be urban based, so naturally a lot of them would be selected. It would be more relevant to ask what is the % of rural based people recruited among the rural applicants. And how they compare vis a vis the urban applicants.
Also the chances are even the rural based people, to join the IT sector would have settled in urban areas to get trained in the required IT skills so they would be classified as urban anyway.
Conversely can we ask what is the % of urban people in agriculture. It would be just as irrelavant.
Now coming to the upper caste angle. The chances are a larger number of applicants to the IT sector would be from the upper castes. Also my opinion is caste based surveys should never be taken. But when they are taken, it could be considered derogatory to ask if someone is from a backward caste. People might just refuse to answer or say that they are not from a considered backward caste. So in such surveys the number of people saying that they are from upper castes could be more. But this might not reflect the true picture.
Absurd. Carol Upadhya came and met me about a year back. In all earnestness, I started interacting with this reasearcher only to see that her queries were slanted. She was obviously trying to give credence to a postulate that she had already built. Sensing that her `research’ was not a genuine effort, I shut myself off. My hunch was right…
Excellent comments by Girish and Chetan.
Reminds me of an episode of Yes Minister where there is a need to set up an “Impartial Inspector” who needs to give his report the way the minister wants. When the minister asks about the “impartial” bit, his secretary chuckles and says “Railway Trains are impartial as well. But if you lay down the tracks for them, thats the way they go”.
I think Carol Upadhya’s so called survey is the same as well – “Ask the questions which give you the answers you want to hear”.
IF WE are talking about the ‘Upper CLASS’ and NOT ‘Caste’ here then definitely the ‘IT industry’ is a product, of the upper class, by the upper class and to the upper class.
Although statistics are stretched generalization of reality. But they are very power powerful arguments, for and against, our generalized; judgments, policies and planning.
In 1998 only 149 out of every 10 lakhs of population were engineers or scientists, and only 337 out of every 10 lakhs of inhabitants were research and development personnel in 1998.
According to 2001 census, only 19 people (per 1000 population) were graduate and above in rural India, (i.e 0.019 per cent of rural India). And in urban India, this figure was103 people per 1000 population (i.e. 0.103 per cent of urban India)
In 2000, 31.05 per cent of India’s rural population was Agricultural labours, and their annual per capita consumption was Rs.4632. Same year, 37.71 percent of rural population was Self employed Agriculturalists, and their annual per capita consumption was Rs. 6234. The annual per capita consumption of self-employed non-agriculture population was 6027. They formed about 13.82 per cent of rural India.
In 2000, 39.09 per cent of urban India, was self employed, with their annual per capita consumption of Rs. 9756. And 39.86 per cent of urban India was regular wafe/ salary earning, with their annual per capita consumption of Rs. 11,777. Casual labours formed 14.28 per cent of urban India with their annual their annual per capita consumption of Rs. 6488.
In 2002-03, the Textile sector, which employs the largest number of people after agriculture, i.e. 35 million people, contributed about four percent of GDP. And the average revenue per employee was about Rs.10,927.
On the other hand, in FY2000, Infosys with staff of 6445, earned a total revenue of Rs. 955 crores. (average revenue per staff =14.82 lakhs). TCS with staff of 15000, earned revenue of Rs. 2201 crores. (average revenue per staff = Rs. 14.67 lakhs). Wipro employed 8578 staff (out of which 7000 were engineers) and earned Rs. 1143 crores, (average revenue per staff = Rs. 13.32 lakhs).
That means, In FY2000, these three companies employed 10.5 percent of the IT industry’s total number of professionals and earned 24.5 per cent of the industry’s total software and services exports, thereby about 15 percent of the industry’s total revenues.
According to another estimate, the average revenue per employee in IT industry (all India estimate), was $16,000 in FY1980, it was $16,215 in FY1990, which doubled after liberalization to $32,635 in FY2000 (14.68 lakhs).
According to NASSCOM, the IT-ITeS (including BPO’s) industry in India currently employs 1.3 million people directly i.e. their proper staff, and 3 million people indirectly, including the gardeners, cooks, peons and even the cigarette stall man outside the companies gates. Totaling all (43 lakhs), IT industry forms 0.35 per cent of total India’s population.
In FY2005, the total revenue of the IT-ITeS industry was Rs. $28.4 million (about Rs1,36,320 crores), about four percent of National GDP. That means the annual average revenue per employee, was Rs, 3, 17, 023. (In contrast, the National per capita revenue (both capital and revenue) was about Rs.4000 (Karnataka’s was about 4,500).
Now again back to the focus, does IT employs lower class?
According to NASSCOM, “The total direct employment in the Indian IT-ITES sector is estimated to have grown by over a million, from 284,000 in FY 2000 to a projected 1,287,000 in the current fiscal (2005-06)” That means an addition of about 10 lakhs employments in five years.
Now the question is n- from where these 10 lakhs of ‘Strong IT-ITeS workforce’ came? (i.e. 1 workforce per 1028.6 persons)
Did they come from rural India, where 19 people per 1000 population is ‘graduates & above’, and where the average annual per capita consumption is about Rs. 5830. Or are they come from the urban India, where 1,03 people per 1000 population is ‘graduates & above’, and where the average annual per capita consumption is Rs. 10,256.