Campus hiring expected to decline in IT sector in FY14

With recession fears in the US and Europe, information technology companies have slowed hiring, delaying even the ones they agreed to hire six months ago. .

Kamal Karanth, co-founder of Xpheno, which specializes in tech hiring, said, “We expect fresher hiring to decline by 20% in FY24 as companies focus on late hiring to start work on client projects. Will do.” “Though some are waiting for them to join.” Dates may accept offers from mid-tier firms, smaller firms may not meet the mass hiring target of large IT services firms.”

While the overall market for software developers remains tight, economic indicators in the US and Europe, top markets for Indian tech companies, are showing warning signs, prompting Indian outsourcers to adopt hiring schemes, especially for freshers. being inspired.

In addition, fewer candidates are joining the junior ranks due to the increasing number of employees waiting to be deployed in projects and pressure on the profitability of the company.

In FY23, Infosys Ltd expects to employ 50,000 from college campuses; Wipro likely to hire 30,000; Tata Consultancy Services Limited will recruit 40,000 students; As per the data gathered from news reports, Tech Mahindra Limited is expected to recruit 15,000 and HCL Technologies Limited is expected to recruit 45,000. Although offer letters have been sent to many of them, they are still waiting for their joining dates, more than six months later, as central banks aggressively rate interest rates amid declining economic activity in the US and Europe. With the rise are declaring war on inflation.

The proposals were made at a time when companies were optimistic about the business outlook before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, fueling global inflation that was already fueled by supply-chain disruptions caused by the pandemic.

After the initial months of the pandemic, IT companies in India acted swiftly to meet customer needs to digitize their processes to reach consumers and remote work for their employees amid worldwide lockdowns. Which created a huge demand for software developers with such skills. and rising salaries.

However, after a year of high salaries and massive employee turnover, the IT services industry is suddenly witnessing a slowdown in deal activity as their clients reduce spending amid rising economic uncertainty.

Saran Balasundaram, founder of tech recruitment firm, HandDigital, said that with the recruitment freeze in product and tech companies, those who want to move away from IT services will have few options.

“In FY22, around 470,000 employees were involved in the IT and IT-enabled services sector. In FY23, we estimate 350,000-370,000, but in FY24, if the slowdown continues, the numbers will come down. But at best, it will be similar to FY23,” Balasundaram said.

Tech firms are on a desperate campaign to promote cost efficiency by reducing annual hikes and variable payouts and slowing down on replacement hiring. Instead, companies are redeploying employees as workforce utilization is expected to decline over the next few quarters.

On October 3, IANS reported that Wipro, Infosys and Tech Mahindra are canceling the offer letter. The Nascent Information Technology Employees Senate (NITES), which deals with employee grievances in the tech sector, said some companies are rejecting letters while some have not sent offer letters to candidates.

NITES President Harpreet Singh Saluja said, “We have come to know that Wipro has canceled the offer letter, and Tech Mahindra has not yet sent offer letters to some of the candidates who were informed that they have been selected.” In September, NITES asked the ministry of labor and employment to look into the delay in inducting 2,000 campus graduates into Wipro.

Tech firms, however, claim that they are working afresh in batches. Wipro said it is hiring in a phased manner. “Wipro can confirm that it will honor all offer letters issued to eligible candidates in a phased manner,” the company said in response to Mint’s queries.

TCS also said that this is surprising their campus hiring. While Tech Mahindra did not respond to Mint’s queries, Infosys had earlier said that it has “hired in record numbers” over the past few quarters. The tech firm said recruitment is client-driven.