The entire upturn came from IT and IT-enabled services (ITeS) exports which valued at $2.9 billion, told Managing Director Pakistan Software Export Board (PSEB) while talking to state-run news agency.
Notwithstanding a flat growth in domestic revenue valued at over $500 million – the freelancers in the country also generated $300 million for the year, he added.
Moreover, in an interview with Tribune, CEO Ignite – National Technology Fund – expected that IT industry in Pakistan is set to double – from existing $3.5 billion to $7.0 billion – by 2020.
Besides official exports of $700 million, the software freelancers also earned $1.2 billion from foreign countries – the amount which is not taken into account by the central bank.
An additional $600 million of exports were recorded by the companies who did not bring their revenue in the country whereas the total hardware and software industry in Pakistan is also valued at $1 billion.
Close to 10,000 IT graduates enter in the Pakistan market every year. The total market comprises of about 150,000 mainstream techies and 150,000 to 200,000 freelancers – that doubles if you take into account the non-tech freelancers also.
Pakistan is a big market of freelance techies in the world. In its 2016 report, Freelancer.com – the largest online work platform with nearly 26 million registered users – has ranked Pakistan at No. 3 globally.
Earlier, in another ‘online work report’ for 2014 by Upwork – Pakistan was rank No. 5 in terms of number of freelance programmers worldwide. The company also included Pakistan in higher 10%-25% category along with India, Ukraine, and Canada in terms of growth rate in Top-10 Earnings Countries.
Although Pakistan’s 3.5 billion is a trifling proportion of the global $3.5 trillion market but its exponential growth is echoing waves of alarms over the past few years and the disruption in Indian IT industry is the newest episode.
Last month, one the largest US-based service providers shifted 125 low-end IT jobs – from Noida to Islamabad. The event immediately drew headlines in India and cautioned tormenting $154 billion Indian IT industry.
Job cuts is normally quite a usual and accustomed incidence in the comparatively much bigger neighboring IT market but India is seeing the as a potential threat to setting a pattern for future IT job layoffs in the country.
A total of 3.9 million people are employed with IT industry in India and it is expected to add another 150,000 additional jobs this year.
Indian topnotch 21% growth in 2013-14 has gradually been fraught to just 8% in 2017-18 with the accessibility of cheaper workers from Bangladesh, Malaysia, and Philippines. Now the ingress of Pakistan could further disrupt its market.
Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) or Industry 4.0 is now on the horizon and new developments will be surfaced in the areas of artificial intelligence, 3D printing, robotics, internet of things ((IOT), and other technologies.
21st century is an era of automation where we would see driverless cars and trucks ruling the roads, robots manning the factories, super-smartphones summoning the Uber helicopters or even self-driven planes piloting their owners.
Klaus Schwab says “In its most pessimistic, dehumanized form, the Fourth Industrial Revolution may indeed have the potential to ‘robotize’ humanity and thus to deprive us of our heart and soul”.
‘But as a compliment to the best parts of human nature – creativity, empathy, stewardship – it can also lift humanity into a new collective and moral consciousness based on a shared sense of destiny. It is incumbent on us all to make sure that the latter prevails.’
Is Pakistan prepared for the latest revolutionary technology trend?