Bengaluru: Several woman employees of Indian IT industry are pursuing independent career path, leading to attrition among female staffers. HR industry experts said that apart from social factors, women are pursuing various other avenues like freelancing, board level roles, and entrepreneurship, for which they are leaving the IT industry. They said that Indian IT firms are aggressively following gender diversity strategies and actively encouraging women staffers to stay for long time in their job roles.

“Companies are doing diversity hiring, but availability of talent is a concern for sure. Women dropping out of the workforce is another reason. Due to various social circumstances, they are not able to pursue their ambitions. There are also many women (in the senior role), who are taking early retirement. At senior level, who are decently compensated, women employees are taking up roles like freelancers, consultants, independent directors and some are also pursuing entrepreneurship,” Aditya Narayan Mishra, CEO of CIEL HR, told Bizz Buzz.

“These are the reasons, for which women employees are dropping out and vacancies are getting created. So, the attrition has taken place, but companies have not fired women employees at mid-level or senior-levels. Rather, IT firms are pursuing gender diversity policies actively,” he added.

Earlier, a report indicated that five of India’s leading IT services companies – Infosys, TCS, Wipro, LTI Mindtree, HCL Tech – have witnessed a cumulative net exit of 25,000 women in the one year ended March. This has raised fears of gender diversity drive of IT firms getting negatively impacted.

However, HR experts said that companies are not laying off women employees, rather the rate of attrition among women staffers is high.

According to industry body Nasscom, Indian IT sector has added more than 10 lakh women employees in the last decade, that indicated the inclusivity efforts of companies.

In 2012-13, Indian tech sector employed around 9 lakh women, which was 30 per cent of the total 20 lakh directly employed women. This number jumped to more than 20 lakh, contributing around 36 per cent of the entire workforce of 50.3 lakh in the industry in 2023.

However, sources in the know said that record number of hiring post pandemic pushed up number of women employees in the IT industry. However, reduction in headcount in the last financial year has pulled down overall employee count, impacting the share of women employees. Similarly, the return to office policies of many firms had prompted many women staffers to leave their jobs.