IT Hiring Set To Rise In Coming Quarters

In the last 4 months, there is an uptick in the hiring. It is happening in specific skillsets like AI, cloud and related domains. There is also an overall change in the workforce as a lot of people have upskilled themselves. That is the reason that hiring volumes have also increased - Supaul Chanda, president (Staffing), Diamondpick, tells Bizz Buzz

Bengaluru: As many large IT firms reported second consecutive quarters of employee addition, HR experts are of the opinion that the uptrend seen in hiring is sustainable in coming quarters.

Both IT services firms and GCCs (global capability centers) are recruiting people for specific skillsets like artificial intelligence (AI), data science among others, they opined.

“In the last four months, there is an uptick in the hiring. It is happening in specific skillsets like AI, cloud and related domains. There is also an overall change in the workforce as a lot of people have upskilled themselves.

That is the reason that hiring volumes have also increased,” Supaul Chanda, president (Staffing) at Diamondpick, an HR staffing firm, told Bizz Buzz.

“It’s not at the level of pre-pandemic, but it is better than last year,” he added. In the quarter ended September, most domestic IT firms have reported increase in their headcount. Moreover, the commentary on future hiring was also encouraging.

India’s largest IT services firm, Tata Consultancy Services’ (TCS) net headcount increased for the second consecutive quarter. It reported a net headcount increase of 5,726 employees in the second quarter of FY25, following a similar rise of 5,452 in the first quarter, taking its total headcount to 6,12,724.

Infosys’ total headcount grew 2,456 to 317,788 by the end of second quarter. This increase was reported after two quarters of decline in the total employee count by the Bengaluru-headquartered firm.

Similarly, Wipro added 978 employees in the second quarter, a second consecutive quarter of headcount increase. Its total headcount stood at 233,889 by the end of September.

Not only large firms, even mid-tier firms have reported uptick in hiring. LTIMindtree added 2,504 staffers on net basis to take the total employee count to 84,438 professionals. Similarly, engineering services firm, L&T Technology Services added 121 people on net basis to take its total headcount to 23,698 in the September quarter.

Sources in the know said that as companies reached optimum employee utilisation levels, they were building bench strength (reserve employee base) for meeting new demand.

Interestingly, hiring is not only happening in the lateral space (experienced people), but also fresher hiring has also shown an uptick.

“We plan to hire around 15,000 to 20,000 freshers in the current financial year. We don’t provide quarter specific onboarding of freshers, but these many freshers will be hired this fiscal year,” Jayesh Sanghrajka, CFO of Infosys, said.

Similarly, Wipro management has said that the company plans to hire around 12,000 freshers this fiscal with onboarding of around 3,000 new graduates every quarter. “Campus placement this year is definitely better than last year. In this space, we also have seen an uptick,” Chanda of Diamondpick said.