Rajesh Nambiar, president of Nasscom, India’s largest industry body for technology companies, told Nikkei Asia (Nikkei Asia) that recent graduates could struggle to land technology jobs as companies automate entry-level coding and software testing with AI. “From a fresher’s point of view, it is a concern, (and) I will not sugarcoat it any differently”, he said, as quoted by India Today (India Today).
“If our education system is unable to make that transition very quickly, students will come out with skill sets which may be very obsolete already”, Nambiar said, adding that “the level of transformations required in the curriculum has never been this significant”.
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The key insight: Nasscom president Rajesh Nambiar told Nikkei Asia that AI is automating the entry-level coding and testing work that gives Indian engineering graduates their first jobs; Nasscom’s own review projects about 6 million direct tech jobs in FY26, a net addition of 135,000.
Basic coding and software testing, the tasks that have traditionally given engineering graduates their first jobs, are increasingly being automated, Nambiar said in the interview. He said this could create difficulties for freshers until India’s IT industry adjusts, and called for a major overhaul of the computer science and engineering curriculum.
He described the current phase for the industry as a period of “rebalancing”, lasting until new AI-related work makes up for revenue lost from older services. He named cybersecurity, AI consulting, and AI implementation and maintenance as the areas companies need to move into. He also said clients increasingly pay for the results a project delivers rather than for the number of people assigned to it, per India Today.
India’s direct tech sector is projected by Nasscom to add 135,000 net jobs in FY26, against engineering and technology enrolment of about 2.6 million (official estimate cited by India Today).
The Numbers Around the Warning
India had 5,903 engineering and technology colleges in the financial year ending March 2026, with enrolments close to 2.6 million, according to official estimates cited by India Today. The same report cites Azim Premji University estimates that the number of unemployed graduates rose nearly fourfold, to about 11 million, between 2004 and 2023.
Nasscom’s own Strategic Review 2026 (nasscom.in) projects direct tech-sector employment at about 6 million in FY26, up 2.3% from the year before, a net addition of 135,000 people. By our arithmetic, that is about 23 net new sector jobs for every engineering and technology college in the official count. The review expects the sector to cross $315 billion of revenue in FY26 and says providers are moving from headcount-based billing to outcome-based contracts.
What the Largest IT Firms Reported
India Today notes that Tata Consultancy Services reported sequential revenuegrowth of 0.5 per cent in the July-September quarter, its weakest in three years, and that Infosys cut its revenuegrowth forecast for the year ending March 2027 to 1-2 per cent from 1.5-3 per cent. The same report says TCS’s annualised AI revenue rose 19 per cent to $3.1 billion and Infosys said its AI revenue grew 29 per cent quarter on quarter.
Connecting the Coverage
The warning adds an Indian data point to the entry-level squeeze we have tracked in the US, where the jobless rate for recent computer engineering graduates rose 3.4x to 7.8% (our piece). Employers including Amazon and HSBC have tied job cuts to AI restructuring (our piece), as have Barclays and American Express (our piece); Bill Gates argued that payroll taxes speed AI job cuts (our piece).
Oracle’s 2026 layoff filings total 1,977 jobs in two US states (our piece), and in India, AdaniConneX has agreed to buy a Vizag data-centre park (our piece).
The Structural Read
As we read the interview, Nambiar’s concern is about the entry point: the tasks that hire freshers, basic coding and software testing, are the ones he says are being automated.
As we read Nasscom’s figures, 135,000 net new direct tech jobs in FY26 works out to about 23 per engineering and technology college in the official count, by our arithmetic.
As we read the pricing point, a shift from billing by headcount to billing by outcome, which both Nambiar and Nasscom’s review describe, links revenue less directly to the number of people deployed.
Rajesh Nambiar, president of Nasscom, to Nikkei Asia (as reported by India Today)
“From a fresher’s point of view, it is a concern, (and) I will not sugarcoat it any differently”
Three Implications
FOR GRADUATES Nambiar said students risk leaving college with skills that may be obsolete unless the curriculum changes quickly, per India Today.
FOR IT SERVICES FIRMS Nambiar named cybersecurity, AI consulting, and AI implementation and maintenance as areas to move into, per India Today.
FOR THE EMPLOYMENT COUNT Nasscom’s review projects direct tech employment of about 6 million in FY26, up 2.3%, a net addition of 135,000.
The analysis says: “SaaS is charged for access to tools. AGaaS charges for the execution of outcomes.”
As we read it, the outcome-based billing Nambiar and Nasscom describe for IT services is one example of that shift; the analysis does not discuss Nasscom or this interview.
What Is Not Established
Nambiar did not put a number on entry-level job losses in the interview as reported, and Nasscom’s FY26 employment figure is a projection. The college and enrolment counts and the unemployed-graduate estimate are the figures India Today cites, not Nasscom’s. We read Nikkei Asia’s opening paragraph directly and the quotes as India Today reported them from the interview.
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Nasscom’s president told Nikkei Asia that AI is automating the entry-level coding and testing work that gives Indian engineering graduates their first jobs, and that students risk leaving college with “very obsolete” skills unless the curriculum changes quickly. Nasscom’s own review projects about 6 million direct tech jobs in FY26, a net addition of 135,000, or about 23 per engineering college in the official count, by our arithmetic.
A note on sourcing. Nambiar’s quotes are from his interview with Nikkei Asia as reported by India Today; employment figures are Nasscom’s FY26 projections; college, enrolment and unemployment figures are those India Today cites. The per-college ratio is our arithmetic.
Gennaro Cuofano is a CRO and tech executive who has worked in AI since late 2015, starting with bringing NLP, natural-language generation, voice and chatbot products to the marketing industry. His background is in law and finance: he holds a Master's degree in Law and an International MBA with an emphasis on corporate finance (LUISS Business School and the University of San Diego, 2012), and worked as a financial analyst at a real-estate investment firm in San Diego and as an assistant controller. His work focuses on business model strategy, business engineering and, more broadly, structural analysis: how companies make money, read from their own filings. He created FourWeekMBA and leads research there and at The Business Engineer, his newsletter on AI and business strategy, with over 95,000 subscribers and more than 1,000 published analyses. His writing has also appeared on Entrepreneur (for example, How to Digitize a Family Business in Europe) and HackerNoon. Find him on LinkedIn and Substack. See how we source.
