Overall, hiring by the 3 Cos. dropped 60%
By R. Chandrasekaran
CHENNAI: India’s third biggest software service company, Wipro, topped the hiring in the IT sector in the first quarter, while the top two companies, namely, Tata Consultancy Services and Infosys, lagged behind it. However, the hiring in all the three big IT firms has slowed down considerably during the June quarter.
While Wipro added 1,469 employees to its roll, TCS came in second with the recruitment of 1,390 people and Infosys could add only 575, during the first quarter. In comparison, the three companies hired 2,600, 4,962 and 1,157 persons respectively, in the year-ago quarter.
The total hiring of the top three IT companies was only a little over 3,400 people compared to 8,700 persons on a net basis last year. This suggests a whopping 60 percent drop in recruitment.
Though TCS has delivered better than expected Q1 numbers and see better opportunities, its hiring rate dropped by 70.4 percent. The company also indicated that it will continue to hire personnel. In fact, TCS was the only company to indicate that it will continue its hiring. While the drop in hiring was expected, the steep fall is somewhat unexpected from the leader.
Infosys, which indicated that it will hire only as and when needed, recorded 50.3 percent fall in recruitment rate. This may not be surprising to the industry given the fact that they were struggling on the execution front and indications were quite clear even before the close of the first quarter.
However, it was somewhat a pleasant surprise to the industry that Wipro topped the hiring in the IT sector though its recruitment rate also slipped by 46.5 percent. This is because of strong rumors of the company canceling its offer letters to prospective candidates.
The hiring also witnessed a steep drop of 79.2 percent sequentially from the March quarter’s 16,500 in these three IT companies.
The slow-down in the IT hiring is expected because of the fact that there are more candidates available now than five years ago and the attrition level has also come down to approximately 14 percent in 2012 – 13 from around 19 percent in 2010-11 for IT sector, according to NASSCOM’s recent survey.
The change in recruitment process is also a factor for the reduction in the number of headcounts during the first quarter as hiring ‘just-in-time’ gained ground.
To contact the author, email to rchandrasekaran@americanbazaaronline.com