IT Hiring Is Back Now As ‘Bench’ Gets Weak

This year, placement is definitely better than last year as the bench strength of IT firms has already depleted. There are also many vacancies seen in the IT services firms. Therefore, IT firms want to fill up those vacancies for building an employee pyramid. That is the reason that these companies are hiring - Aditya Narayan Mishra, CEO, CIEL HR, tells Bizz Buzz

Bengaluru: Campus placement in engineering colleges is going on after a close to one-and-a-half-years as IT companies are eager to refill their depleted benches or reserve employee strength.

According to HR industry experts, overall hiring numbers in 2024 will definitely be better than previous year, but AI and automation have started to impact total number.

“This year, placement is definitely better than last year as the bench strength of IT firms has already depleted. There are also many vacancies seen in the IT services firms. Therefore, IT firms want to fill up those vacancies for building an (employee) pyramid. That is the reason that these companies are hiring,” Aditya Narayan Mishra, CEO of HR consultancy firm, CIEL HR, told Bizz Buzz.

“However, new technologies like automation, AI (artificial intelligence) & others are definitely impacting the hiring numbers,” he added.

The top four IT services firms in India have indicated that that they intend to hire around 70,000 fresh engineering graduates in the current financial year.

While TCS plans to hire 40,000 freshers, Infosys is also planning to recruit 15,000-20,000 freshers in the ongoing financial year. Similarly, Wipro is planning to hire around 10,000-12,000 fresh graduates this year. HCL Tech is also likely to recruit about 10,000 freshers. If hiring by mid-tier IT and engineering services firms is taken into account, around 1 lakh freshers are expected to get offer letter during the current placement season.

Global IT major, Accenture recently reported onboarding of 41,484 employees in fiscal 2024. It hired more than 24,000 employees during June-August quarter (Q4).

“We are hiring primarily in India, so a lot of that hiring is technology in India. We hire all over the world, and in technology, which is a big driver of the growth that we’re seeing now, and going into FY2025, that is a lot of hiring in India,” Julie Sweet, CEO of Accenture said in analyst call.

Meanwhile, placement heads of engineering colleges, IT firms are looking at candidates with specialised skills in the field of cloud computing, data analytics, and artificial intelligence (AI) among others. Companies are also offering higher salaries of Rs 6 lakh to Rs 9 lakh to those candidates with specialised skills. Despite the uptick, HR industry executives don’t expect record hiring levels coming back anytime soon. “As compared to revenue growth seen in the IT firms, proportionate employee addition has not happened in recent years. That shows that AI is impacting job growth,” said another HR executive.