Software firms in India that employee over 16 million are set to slash headcounts by 3 million by 2022, which will help them save USD 100 billion mostly in salaries annually, reports LiveMint, citing a report from Bank of America. The domestic IT sector employs around 16 million, of them and around 9 million are employed in low-skilled services and BPO roles, according to trade body Nasscom. Of these 9 million low-skilled services and BPO roles, 30% or around 3 million, will be lost by 2022, principally driven by the impact of robot process automation (RPA).

“Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys, Wipro, HCL, Tech Mahindra and Cognizant and others appear to be planning for a 3 million reduction in low-skilled roles by 2022 because of RPA up-skilling,” the report states. Based on average fully-loaded employee costs of USD 25,000 per year for India-based resources and USD 50,000 for US resources, this will release around USD 100 billion in annual salaries and associated expenses for corporates, the report adds.

The key reason for the RPA-driven job loses is that many countries that had offshored their work in the past are likely to bring the jobs back to their own home markets, according to the report.