Top IT firms add fewer jobs on fears of US, Euro slowdown

With Europe slowing and the possibility of a US recession rising, India’s top four IT services companies have sharply reduced their hiring.

TCS, Infosys, Wipro, and HCL together added just 28,836 people on a net basis in the September quarter of FY23, almost half of what they added in the preceding quarter, as also in the year-ago quarter.

Wipro added the least — 605. Several CEOs said global macroeconomic uncertainties are growing, and companies need to be cautious.

All of the companies have, however, assured that all offer letters to freshers will be honoured. Some freshers are reported to have complained that their onboarding is getting delayed.

But the IT giants say they have onboarded thousands of freshers each quarter over the last few years in an attempt to rationalise the pyramid, and that has continued in the latest quarter as well.

HCL said it added 10,339 freshers, while TCS onboarded 20,000. In the first half of this financial year, Wipro added 14,000 freshers.

Managements of these companies have said that fresher addition will continue in the second half of the financial year too, and macroeconomic factors will have no bearing on this.

Milind Lakkad, chief HR officer at TCS, said at the company’s earnings call that 10,000 more freshers will be onboarded in the second half of FY23.

HCL CEO C Vijayakumar said that they will onboard at least 30,000 freshers this fiscal. Wipro CEO Thierry Delaporte said the company has decided to become “ambitious” and “really build” their freshers’ strategy.

While net additions are dropping, attrition continues to be over 20% for these companies, with just marginal drops in voluntary attrition at Infosys and Wipro. HCL’s attrition continued to be 23.8%. But most of these companies say attrition has peaked.