Now, IT firms opting for need-based hiring
Lateral hiring & recruitment of freshers slow down drastically as recession fears looming across the world
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Bengaluru: Hiring of experienced engineers through lateral hiring route by Indian IT services companies and technology captives of multinational corporations (MNCs) has come down drastically in the last three months.
Sources in the know said that only need-based hiring for critical positions is being undertaken. While slowdown fears in the western world is prompting global capability centres (GCCs) to go slow on headcount addition, Indian IT firms are optimising cost through slow hiring.
"Lateral hiring is kind of frozen at this point of time. IT firms are going slow on adding headcount and are only filling up those positions, which are critical for project execution and give quick return," said a top official from a leading HR firm, who wished not to be quoted. "Things are not much different in GCCs as slowdown fears prompting captives to go cautious on new employee addition," he added.
Domestic IT industry has been facing elevated attrition level with most companies reporting more than 20 per cent employee attrition numbers for the last many quarters. However, ongoing layoffs by global technology firms and domestic startups are easing the supply pressure with many believing that attrition would come down soon.
"Attrition level of Indian IT industry is sort of stabilizing. It is coming to the pre-pandemic level. Everyone is spending cautiously. That is the reason that hiring is stabilizing. However, we see that there are some very specific digital skills that are in demand. Application services, digital engineering, and customer experience are the areas where hiring is going on," Global IT research firm ISG's principal analyst Mrinal Rai told Bizz Buzz.
Global technology firms including Meta, Amazon, Twitter, Microsoft and Google among others have laid off more than 25,000 people in recent months globally. Though the number of employees affected in Indian operations of these companies is not known, many believe it to be sizeable.
Similarly, Indian startups have fired more than 20,000 staffers this year as external funding to these new age companies dropped substantially. Against this backdrop, voluntary attrition- people leaving their jobs on their own- has come down drastically. Therefore, Indian IT firms are expected to report better attrition numbers in the third quarter ending December, 2022.
Meanwhile, fresher onboarding is also getting delayed with deferred joining dates. After a record hiring of engineering graduates from campuses, hiring momentum is also likely to slacken next year.
