New Delhi, May 18 (IANS): Software industry body National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom) on Thursday dismissed as incorrect reports of mass layoffs by IT companies in India.

The industry body said the numbers being reported with regard to layoffs across different sources are not in line with the actual employment progression. 

"In fact, the industry continues to be a net hirer with talent acquisition continuing across sectors. In 2016-17, the industry added 170,000 new jobs (600,000 in last three years) and today boasts of a total employee base of 3.9 million (95,000-100,000 in start-ups and 50,000-60,000 in e-commerce)," it said in a statement.

"The sector remains one of the largest employers of the nation. While there is a gentle deceleration in the net hiring growth rate due to shifting focuses towards innovation, lower attrition and enhanced efficiencies, the sector continues to hire fresh as-well-as lateral employees in equal proportion thus indicating the opportunities for employment at the entry as well as the mid-management level."

The statement said workforce realignment is common to any industry and is a part of the regular exercise of yearly performance appraisal processes, which only impacts 0.5-3 per cent of the overall IT talent pool.

"Both skilling and talent re-deployment are part of a regular yearly cycle, as this enables companies to remain competitive," Nasscom Chairman Raman Roy said at a conference here.

"Companies evaluate their priorities based on the business needs and work towards making the necessary changes in their workforce planning. And, therefore, it is important to look at the larger picture and the long-term roadmap to completely understand and appreciate the situation," he added.

According to Nasscom, many firms have already established dedicated programmes to re-skill their existing employees and India today boasts of over 300,000 such experts, with the top companies already re-skilling an average 50 per cent of their employee base.

"The need for re-skilling talent is a reality that we have to address. To keep up in a fast-evolving technology environment, the IT industry must reinvent itself by re-skilling its employees in new and upcoming technologies," said Nasscom President R. Chandrashekhar.