There has been a big hue and cry over Infosys laying off close to 700 trainees from its Mysuru facility. The background, in itself, is quite interesting. The trainees were, apparently, made the offer more than 2 years ago, but due to internal shift in priorities, they were never taken on board. Eventually they were only taken on board in late 2024 and were going through the relatively rigorous Mysuru training program. According to Infosys, the contract with the trainees had laid out clearly that the employment was subject to these trainees clearing the evaluation examination within 3 trials. 

That was the key problem. Out of over 2,500 trainees, over 700 trainees did not make the cut, as they could not clear the evaluation examination even after three attempts. That is when the 700 trainees were asked to leave the company and the camps with immediate effect. There are some concerns raised on humanitarian grounds, as people were asked to leave the campus at short notice. Also, the key labour bodies are planning to take up the matter seriously. However, that has been done, is largely as per the letter of the contract, and really cannot be faulted.  

There was a time when most of the IT companies used to run with a full bench. The bench refers to employees who were on the rolls, but did not have projects. That idea, is already losing relevance. IT companies are now becoming a lot more economical about how they add and how they retain manpower. They need to run a tight ship and any spending leakages are totally ruled out. That explains the decision why Infosys did it in a hurry! 

This is not just an Indian phenomenon, but even globally AI and ML are taking a toll on jobs. If automation reduced the routine jobs, AI and ML are also reducing the smart jobs. The challenge is clear and the onus is on the employees to always be open to new ideas and retrain and to re-equip themselves. Unless they do that on a consistent basis, AI and ML will take away their roles. There is no choice! 

The trend of AI and ML taking your job may be just about visible, but it is likely to become a deluge in the next few years as the use of AI spreads with more test cases and much better technology, cloud computing skills and storage. As AI takes on scale, the impact on most jobs is only going to get magnified. Infosys has just sounded the siren. This will be the one big career challenge for professionals! ©