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-   -   The plight of IT professionals in their 40s (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/shifting-gears/198522-plight-professionals-their-40s-4.html)

These are daily wage figures and are seasonal. Work is not guaranteed. Besides, most people these days are not inclined to do hard labour in the sun.

The chances of IT workers shifting to agriculture successfully is extremely remote. Especially if they are not from farming background.

In this thread and several others in this forum I have seen people belittling the IT sector calling them coolies etc. If there is a job, somebody has to do it. Be thankful that some companies used that opportunity and brought the country some foreign exchange. No jobs deserve any respect, but they do not deserve ridicule either.

I do not consider any job lowly. Nor noble, for that matter. We all work so that we could eat, clothe, have a shelter and enjoy life. If it was possible I would have chosen a job that required to stay in my couch and watch the movies of my choice all day. We make the best compromise that is possible while selecting the job we want to do, balancing capability, pay and satisfaction. Every job in this world is an opportunity to earn, and if somebody has selected a job that offers no satisfaction, it just means that that was the only job he could land himself in.

Hence, coming to the jobs in question - arecenut peeling and IT services - all other points ignored, am sure the latter provides more satisfaction than the former. So the suggest arecenut peeling as a viable job to somebody who has the potential to land an IT job is preposterous.

Completely agree with what you have said. Not everyone wants to make hard labour, and there is definitely better opportunity for growth in IT. That said ,unskilled labourers used to make about 3-4K a month 10 years back when an IT engineer(Fresher) used to make 20K a month. Come 2018, IT engineer(Fresher) continues to make 20K a month where as a labourer easily makes 15K a month on an average. I just wanted to showcase earnings in farming sector compared to IT and not to compare which is a better job.

I don't doubt AI will progress but in the end one would need a human to deliver the service. Maybe with the progress of AI, less training would be needed for humans to impart quality service so professional nurses would be able to perform some of the tasks but for advanced diagnosis we would still need to experience and instinct doctors have.


Jeez, Rs. 4,500 for a dentist? Maybe that is Kochi but here in Mumbai it is several times that.

My suddenly widowed cousin who is a dentist faced this in Bangalore. She emigrated to Canada. Did not requalify as a dentist but became a dental hygienist instead

I am not from IT field instead managing a Internet based startup. After going through all the posts I am having a hard time in answering what is my domain knowledge.

I am currently managing a startup wherein guiding team in operations, sales, finance, digital marketing and product development.

At times I have asked myself what is my expertise and have struggled to come up with a definite answer. What do I say as doing so many things but deep expertise in no particular domain.

Life in 40s just keeps getting tougher and tougher!

First, our metabolism decides to kick the bucket. So, where one or two slices of pizza used to be insignificant now end up defying mathematics and increasing our weight disproportionate to the meal's weight.

We may decide to counter it by increasing physical activity but then our immune system says it is time to take it slow. So, injuries start taking ages to heal. When injured, you can't work out so, see above!

Then our kids start sucking all the life savings out of us on education and all that stuff.

And now we have a thread discussing how our career is also in the toilet :Frustrati

That's it. I am now officially hitting the mid life crisis. So, I am going to go get myself a car I certainly can't afford. You Only Live Once, right?

Btw, I dont like how IT is being singled out. hehe. Please change the title to remove IT. I think this is the plight of all professionals in their 40s.

For guys with experience > 8 years, finding a job after reskilling in tough. Many of my friend working in Teradata technology are trying to move to Hadoop. Even after completing training and hand on project in outside training centre, they getting rejected in interview for not having "Production" hands on experience.


Now, with agile methodology teams and getting smaller. In my project team size got reduced from 5 to 1. I survived because I am can do all work that need to be done for on going maintenance. :)

LOL on the rest of your post! You paint a very "grim" picture of the 40s.
Getting down to the brass tacks - 45 is the new retirement age.

I am in non-IT and I see plenty of cases of people who are done with by the time they hit mid 40s, either burnt out or shown the door by the organization.

Totally agree with you. I am working as Consultant Radiation Oncologist for the last four years and I strongly believe that " WINTER IS COMING" for Medical Profession especially doctors. Gone are the days when experience was a badge of admiration for doctors. When corporate hospitals can hire fresh post graduate doctors with significantly cheaper pay packages, the need for experienced doctors are diminishing. I know of many places where a senior consultant handles an entire department [ who gets paid handsomely] with the help of junior doctors [who gets peanuts compared to the senior consultant]. Also if you are on the wrong side of 40s it is very difficult to learn new skills. I work from 8.30-5.30 most of the days in a week. How come I can find time to constantly update my knowledge and sharpen my skill set. It is easier said than done and work-life balance is on the edge for most of those who work in private sector.

Believe me, the medical practice is evolving into a more technical domain compared to more traditional " clinical " method. Gone are the times when expert doctors could diagnose many complex conditions with skill and experience. Now even the most experienced doctor will resort to all the available technical interventions to come to diagnosis. We [doctors] call it practice of " DEFENSIVE" medicine because without substantiating or corroborative evidence the chance of a medical negligence case is hanging over doctor's head. Off course, there will be doctors [ a human touch/interface can't be replicated with machines/computers] but the significance of so called experienced doctors will significantly come down.

Mostly true about nursing staff. I think they are more immune from this compared to doctors or other para-medical staff. Do you know that IBM has tested around 30 Radiologists [all of them were so called experts with tremendous experience in their field] with imaging studies of 100 patients against their AI system Watson. The success rate for the so called experts in diagnosis was between 70-80% but Watson scored perfect 100. Many hospitals in US ( Cleveland clinic, Mayo clinic etc) has started using these AI systems in treating patients. So Machine learning has reached here and it is going to stay here. I work in a field of medicine which is closely associated with technology; Radiation treatment for cancer patients. I know for sure that 80% of the work I do can be done by a clever algorithm and it is just a matter of time before they come knocking on our doors. A period of 10 years can make your knowledge obsolete and I shudder to think about the situation 10 years from here . Off course all of us are continuing our learning process and updating our skills but I wonder whether it is enough.

In South India [especially Kerala] supply of doctors far exceeds demand. So four figure salaries are not at all a surprise now a days. You will be shocked if I share the starting salary of many young graduates and post graduates here:Shockked:

Hmm lots of opinion about the gloom in the IT industry! I don't think situation is that bad and if it is then we are ourselves to blame for it.

I have seen so many people going for the typical Indian mentality of getting a lead, a manager, and what not tag. When winter comes, these are the folks who are picked first to be shown the door. I believe that one should continue to be an IC (individual contributor) and Excel in it. The other thing is to move out of the comfort zone to startups or nieche technology companies. They really do value talent and with talent if you can bring wisdom and insights in technology, nothing like it.

We have been trying to hire people in our technology driven startup with money being not a constraint, we find it difficult to find people who would love technology. Most of them want to become a manager! I mean, really why do you want to manage people. If you have hired good "human beings", they most of the times manage themselves.

I also don't agree with the term reskilling. What is required is deep understanding of the tech that you are working on and be good at it. There are sufficient jobs for people who are good at work. It's not a fluke that we keep hearing that "employability" is a problem in India and not really the employement opportunities.

Forget IT industry, how many of us really find good car mechanics/service centers. People tend to look for shorcuts and chalta hai attitude. Difficult to find people who would pay attention to detail. Sorry for the rant :)

Looks like I need to rethink about my plans and start preparing for UPSC :D
Getting there means at least no tension till one turns 60.

Interesting thread this !!.

I remember looking at an old Infosys annual report (must have been around 2010) and this was probably a 2004 report. This was the time where Infosys used to provide details about age of it's employees. there were 10000 odd people between 25-35 years but only folks in 3 digits between 35-40. 40+ was in the high two digits. I realized then that the IT services employment story is going to have a fairly tragic ending.

This was when I decided to pursue an MBA. While pursuing the MBA, I remember the profs telling us that we should expect to change streams at least 2-3 times in our career. Life time learning is the key.

During the Fag end of my program, there was a Goldman Sachs MD who dropped in because of a professor connect. We talked about the future of industry, economics and best place to make investments. He had this theory that advanced AI/ML based manufacturing and services will hurts EMs and the best places to invest are DMs which have cheap power and cutting edge technology.

It's been a while since the bschool. I am still in technology. However I do have a better understanding of how the domain works. I see clear signs that India's demographic dividend may become a liability. I have a feeling that there will come a day where only very creative and innovative people will work. I don't expect more than 25% of the population to be gainfully employed. Around 75% of the world will probably live on subsidy payments and government doles. There may be significant social and political unrest when we transition to this model as evidenced by recent reservations stirs and all but the path is already clear.

No profession or discipline will be safe but the best in each profession will reinvent the profession much more faster than what's happening today. Hopefully this transition will be peaceful !!

You nailed it. In a decades time, demographic dividend is going to become a liability. IT industry has made one generation of Indians economically secure (or so I think), but the road ahead even for the fresh grads is not going to be easy as it was in the early 2000s.

A leading Dentistry chain in TN pays Rs.7,500 to Dentists. They do get a commission for leads on procedures like root-canal. Otherwise, the base pay is that much. Dentists with PG degree and experience to perform an operation and such get paid more.

Our cook in India, made half of that by working for a quarter of the time a dentist does.

Similarly, a friend pays Rs.18,000/month for their driver. He transports their children to school and tuition 5 days a week. On call on weekends if required.

With respect to the topic, I guess it's a supply-demand thing that's applicable for any industry at any age.

Whatever field or age, the killer is complacency.

I was shocked when I heard people saying, "I've joined here to retire." and "Life is settled here." at an MNC. It's not even a damn Government job. In the recent past, the reality has dawned and at least some have started to update their CV. Most others? Naah, it won't be me that'll be fired.