Despite pandemic, Telangana’s IT exports & jobs up in 2020-21

HYDERABAD: Telangana’s IT sector has turned the tables on the pandemic.
At a time when Covid-19 is destroying jobs in almost every sector, tech companies in the state have created 46,489 jobs during 2020-21 as compared to 39,093 in 2019-20.
These jobs were added despite slower IT exports growth of 13% in 2020-21 at Rs 1.45 lakh crore. The state’s IT exports had grown 18% during 2019-20 at Rs 1.29 lakh crore from Rs 1.09 lakh crore in 2018-19.
“The employment in the IT/ITeS sector has increased by 8% in 2020-21...Every new direct job created in the IT sector leads to the creation of 2.5 new indirect jobs,” said Telangana IT and industries minister KT Rama Rao while launching the annual report of IT, Electronics and Communication (ITE&C) department on Thursday.
ITE&C principal secretary Jayesh Ranjan attributed the growth in job creation to three key factors — large companies continuing to expand their workforce as per their pre-Covid plans, push in digitisation necessitated by Covid-19 and the availability of skilled workforce in Hyderabad with low attrition rates.
KTR pointed out that when Telangana was formed, there were 3.23 lakh people working in the IT and ITeS sector and over 3 lakh new jobs have been added in the last seven years, taking the total employment created by the sector to 6.28 lakh.
“When we started as a newborn state of Telangana in 2014, our IT exports were Rs 57,000 crore. Since the formation of the new state, we have been able to achieve a CAGR of 14.25%,” KTR said.
Commenting on the numbers, HYSEA president Bharani Kumar Aroll pointed out that the IT exports growth numbers have been impressive as the industry was only targeting a higher single digit growth during the onset of pandemic last year, but with the gradual recovery the IT industry was hopeful of double digit growth by the end of FY21.
“What is commendable is that a higher number of jobs have been created despite the IT industry working from home. In the coming days, with the state government’s thrust on boosting the IT sector in tier 2-3 centres and the WFH scenario, the sector is poised to grow in these places as well,” he said, adding that investments have flowed into the state despite Covid-19 and not even a single deal was reversed.
Besides attracting new IT players to the state and enabling the existing ones to expand operations, KTR said the state government was working with industry stakeholders to boost the growth and usage of emerging technologies such as AI, Blockchain and Drones among others, in various sectors such as healthcare and agriculture.
He said the state government would also be setting up IT towers in Ramagundam, Nalgonda, Mahabubnagar, Nizamabad and Siddipet.