Great resignation is over for IT: Good or bad news for the global aluminium industry?

Introduction

In the IT industry, resignations and job changes increased slightly before and during the pandemic. During the pandemic, the same tendency went only northward. The IT leaders of the world, many of them from India, had touched around 35% attrition rate, which was a major worry for them. This stemmed from the fact that working from home was made a norm, and as a result, the geographic location of a job was no longer a constraint. The jolting of the entire supply chain of many companies warranted that functions like planning, systems, and MIS become more real-time and quickly responsive. As a result, the dependency on digital interventions had increased manifolds – these generated the adoption of global collaborative software and applications, AI-based planning and solutions, and the usage of predictive analytics for making decisions. Along with all these areas came the generative AI-based models from September when ChatGPT entered the market.

All these changes resulted in a significant increase in new-age IT talent, and technology companies struggled to retain talents and get new talents. This shift also impacted the various areas to a varied degree – fields like Exponential Technology (AI-ML-DL, VR-AR, Industry 4.0, etc.) saw more employee turnover than IT infrastructure. In contrast, fields like information security or cyber security showed a moderate attrition rate.

What has shifted over the last one year

During the great resignation period, the talent pool primarily moved within the Technology industry. As a result, lateral recruitment was also at an all-time high. The requirement for talent was high; the middle management and developers were leaving, and hence, the technology behemoths focused on attracting talents from similar set-ups. So, there were a lot of changes happening within the IT companies, Big-4 technology consulting firms, and even in the tier-2 IT solution providers.

However, over the last one year, the requirements across the varied levels of IT skills have settled. The business has gradually returned to the productivity and demand level with respect to the pre-Covid phase, and hence, the requirement for various technology skills has also settled. As a result, many technology giants have either deferred the salary hikes or stalled the same for a year.

Despite that fact, thanks to the demand settlement, the attrition rates across the major IT companies have come down. TCS, Infosys, and HCL Tech have reported an attrition rate of 14-15% during the second quarter of the 2024 fiscal. However, Wipro, another global IT giant, has reported a slightly higher attrition rate, i.e., 15.5%. ⁱ

What do all these mean for the global Aluminium industry?

The global Aluminium industry consumes IT solutions in two major ways – the companies in the upstream areas (mining, equipment, primary smelters, refractories, etc.) have their in-house IT teams working on the various customized solutions or identifying and implementing the technologies. However, the downstream segment, some exceptions notwithstanding, focuses comparatively more on third-party managed services and works with external solution providers. The big companies also focus on external technology service providers for first-time solution implementations along with the major enhancements of the ERP, line overhaul or even in the exponential technology space.

During the great resignation, the aluminium industry could not get a significant share of the moving IT talent pool as the resources focused more on a similar cohort of companies to work for. However, with the great resignation being over at present, the attritions will be more lateral in terms of the industries. Many mid-level exits can now be available to join the core industries like metal and mining or other core industries. Hence, this is a great opportunity for the Aluminium companies as they can attract such talents and satiate the need for foraying into newer technology areas targeted towards better process efficiency, greener production of aluminium, smarter manufacturing techniques, more agile supply chain, digital methods of procuring and disposing of the assets and even reaching to the wider audience and market the products over digital media. The decision mechanism may be made faster and data-driven with the help of Technology and the newly available pool of IT professionals, many of them having the right exposure and knowledge in the exponential technology domain can be available to the Aluminium companies having the right aspiration to delve into these areas of new-age business capabilities.

Conclusion

AL Circle’s primary and secondary research indicates that the IT field will evolve further in the days to come. However, sporadic numbness after the pandemic and great resignation have also stalled. The attritions in the IT industry during this time will be a good opportunity for the Aluminium industry to hire and delve deeper into the multitude of technology space – ranging from traditional IT supports to high-end technology and innovation-driven value chain transformation. How the global Aluminium industry attracts such a talent base will be a matter of great interest for many to watch. This will be a critical game-changer for many companies in the aluminium value chain. Team AL Circle will keep its eye on the matter and keep reporting future updates related to the matter.

ⁱ Data from the individual company results and interim reports