During the COVID-19 pandemic, the information technology sector has thrivedacross the world. Following suit, Pakistan’s IT industry has also seentremendous growth in its business. The industry is currently in anexpansion mode, including aggressive hiring of professionals to meet thelocal and foreign demand.
The IT industry is rapidly expanding as the local companies receivedvarious projects from different markets, including the USA, UK, EuropeanCountries, due to the increasing automation in businesses in the wake ofCOVID-19.
Large and mid-sized companies providing IT and IT-enabled services arelooking for professionals in the field of software and Mobilelink app development, digital marketing,e-commerce, cloud technologies, artificial intelligence, and BusinessProcess Outsourcing (BPO).
Pakistan’s IT industry needs thousands of workers in different fields tomeet the demand of the export-based and local projects from a short-term toa medium-term basis, informed Chairman P@SHA, Barkan Syed. The demand foradditional human resources is likely to meet long-term projects in thefuture. However, it depends on various factors, including the performanceof the IT companies and the government’s support to facilitate localcompanies.
As many as 5,000 experienced professionals in the advanced fields such asbackend and front end programmers, cloud experts, mobile programmers, etc.,could be accommodated immediately in the industry. Whereas more than 5,000low skilled workers are needed in call centers and the BPO sector, heelaborated.
Recently, the leading service providers of BPO segments had accomplishedprojects for foreign clients, which were appreciated. Hence, a few longterm projects were received by the Pakistan companies, for whom the hiringand training of the fresh people is underway at a handsome pace, he added.
He believed that companies working in sectors like travel have been badlyimpacted in the recent past. However, the resources from such companiescould easily be accommodated in other companies that are growing during theCOVID-19 pandemic.
IT industry faced an uncertain period due to the lockdown in the countryback in April 2020, fearing retrenchment of sources, including layoffs andpay-cuts. However, major companies and medium-sized software houses bouncedback, tapping into the opportunities in local and foreign markets. Thesecompanies did not only succeed in securing big business projects but alsostreamlined their operations based on the work-from-home model to savetheir expenses.