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    Covid-19 forced Big 4 Indian IT firms to step up hiring in Q3

    Synopsis

    Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys, HCL Technologies and Wipro hired a combined 36,487 employees in the December quarter of 2020-21, as clients demanded faster execution of digital projects.

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    India's top-tier IT services providers—Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Infosys, HCL Technologies and Wipro—have hired a total of 36,487 employees in the December quarter of FY21, significantly higher than during the same period in 2019, as clients demanded faster execution of digital projects.

    The top four firms account for nearly a fourth of India’s 4.3 million information technology workforce.

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    The four largest IT firms by revenue had hired 10,820 people in October-December 2019, faced with cautious technology spending by clients in an uncertain economic environment. However, as the Covid-19 pandemic induced lockdowns across the globe last year, customers were forced to shift employees to working remotely and had to increase technology spending for moving applications to the Cloud in order to ensure business continuity.

    India’s largest software services exporter TCS reported net addition of 15,721 employees in the third quarter, its highest in a three-month period, against net reduction of 4,063 employees during the same time in 2019.
    The numbers include around 1,500 staff taken on board from Pramerica Systems Ireland Ltd. after it acquired certain assets and employees from Prudential Financial last year.

    “We had shared with you earlier about our commitment to completely honour our outstanding hiring offers that we had made, and we had hired and made offers assuming a much stronger demand scenario. So, we have that inventory of almost 40,000 trainees that we had committed to bring on board,” Rajesh Gopinathan, chief executive officer of TCS, told an analyst recently when asked if there would be a talent supply issue.

    Bengaluru-based Infosys, which added 9,104 people in the quarter to 31 December as against 6,968 professionals in the same period in 2019, said it would hire more freshers. The company said it would recruit 24,000 freshers in the year ahead, a 60% jump from the initially planned 15,000 people.

    “Given the growth momentum we are seeing and high utilisation…attrition can possibly pick up over the next quarters. Considering all that, we have increased the fresher hiring to 24,000,” said UB Pravin Rao, chief operating officer, Infosys.

    Q3 Spurt

    The third quarter typically sees fewer people movement and recruitment, but the impact of the pandemic is partially responsible for the spurt in hiring numbers in the just concluded quarter, analysts said.

    “Of course, it is a positive trend for the industry, but you have to look at the timing. They have pushed their hiring activity by at least a quarter. Next quarter will be the right quarter to look at,” said Kamal Karanth, co-founder of specialist staffing agency Xpheno.

    HCL Technologies, the third largest software services firm, also reported growth in net hiring and addition of freshers in the third quarter. In fact, HCL Tech is expecting to overshoot its targeted recruitment for the current fiscal, both in terms of freshers as well as lateral hires.

    Apparao VV, chief human resource officer at HCL Tech, said the company had targeted to hire 9,000 freshers, but that is likely to balloon to 12,000 by the end of the financial year, with the January-March quarter alone expected to see 5,000 additions.

    Similarly, the company is hoping to hire between 5,000 and 10,000 laterals in the current quarter alone, though its full year target was only about 10,000 to 15,000 people.

    “There are multiple reasons for the ramp up in hiring. Customers were not able to buy in Q1 and Q2 and, second, the demand for digitalisation has increased tremendously with the need to move on to the Cloud, need for cybersecurity, etc.," Apparao said. "Since a lot of countries started looking inwards towards their own people for jobs, they are not getting the scale there, so a lot of people are moving offshore to India for quick ramp-ups."

    In all, HCL Tech added 6,597 employees against 2,050 people in the same period in 2019.

    Wipro, on the other hand, hired slightly fewer people—5,065—than in the third quarter of 2019 (5,865).

    Saurabh Govil, chief HR officer at Wipro, however, said the company would “continue to have robust hiring in Q4 across the board and onboard freshers.”

    Alongside increased hiring, technology companies also expect attrition to go up in the coming months.
    ( Originally published on Jan 19, 2021 )
    The Economic Times

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