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IT hiring gaining momentum, TCS, Infosys show sharp rise

The demand for experienced professionals is growing, data points of top-tier IT companies show.

Infotech (IT) hiring (by the Indian software services industry) is showing signs of a steady pickup in the current fiscal compared with the gloomy scenario of the previous fiscal. The demand for experienced professionals is growing, if early data points of some top-tier IT companies are anything to go by.

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The hiring pattern of the three-month period between April and June of 2013 of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and Infosys reveal a sharp rise in the number of employees leaving these software-services majors, indicating there is a growing number of jobs available in the market. Typically, this is also a time when a large number of employees leave for higher studies. Another factor that leads to the huge movement of IT professionals in the first quarter of the fiscal is the salary hikes announced by the companies. It is a period when employees look for greener pastures.

The country’s largest IT-services company, TCS, which made a gross hiring of 10,611 people in April-June 2013, added only 1,390 people on a net basis while the second-largest player, Infosys, made a meagre 575 net additions of the 10,138 gross additions. During the same period last fiscal, TCS made net additions of 4,962 people on gross hiring of 13,831 while for Infosys the figure was was 1,157 on a gross number of 9,236.

Global staffing services firm Kelly Services India managing director Kamal Karanth told FE, ?The recruitment market has got better now and there is a growing demand for laterals from various companies.?

According to the recently released Monster Employment Index, the BPO/ITes (information technology-enabled services) sector was at the top among the highest-growth industries, with its index rising 22% in June 2013 over the last year.

The Indian IT industry provides direct employment to around three million people and, according to the trade body Nasscom, the sector added net 1,88,300 jobs in FY13. However, in the current fiscal, the industry is expecting, on a conservative basis, to hire around 1,30,000-1,50,000 people as some IT companies are still filling up the backlogs from last year’s recruitment, largely placements from educational institutions or campus hiring.

According to Suparna Rao, co-founder & CEO, Excellence4u, an employee assessment firm, ?A good number of jobs are available in the market and hiring is happening at a good pace.?

Industry observers said many of these employees from Indian firms are being picked up mainly by the captive units of tech MNCs and the IT back-offices of global financial institutions in India. The demand for employees from Indian companies, such as TCS, Infosys or Wipro, is because of their better exposure to global businesses and grasp of the various standards. ?

Although a high number of people leaving a company may not be a good sign, a common trend across firms indicates that hiring is buzzing with activity. Amitabh Das, CEO, Vati Consulting, a HR services firm, feels that it is a good sign that jobs are being created and there are some areas of the IT sector that are growing.

Unlike in the past, there is very low expectation of any mass hiring by IT companies as they are now focused more on recruiting people in areas of new technologies such as cloud, data mining and

analytics.

However, one area of recruitment that has almost come to a halt is campus hiring. Many companies, such as Infosys and HCL Technologies, are still in the process of hiring the backlog of FY13 due to slowing business demand. The annual net addition of employees by Infosys in FY13, for instance, has been the company’s lowest in the past five years. It had a net intake of 6,694 people compared with 19,174 in FY12. Even during the quarter ended March 2013, the company added just 1,059 employees, the lowest intake in three years, highlighting how Indian IT firms are going slow on fresh hires.

Today, companies are employing multiple strategies while hiring, which includes a mix of permanent staff and people working on a contract basis, giving them more options.

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First published on: 23-07-2013 at 02:01 IST
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