Indian IT firms have lined up robust hiring plans for 2021-22. The top four IT firms - TCS, Infosys, HCL Technologies and Wipro - collectively plan to hire 91,000 from campuses, a little higher than last year. Most of the ongoing financial year’s campus hiring would have been concluded before businesses were hit by the pandemic. Companies generally have honoured those offers, though some with a lag. TCS executive VP and global HR head Milind Lakkad said in recent media interactions that the company expects to hire the same number of freshers for the next year as it did this year (about 40,000). Infosys said it will hire 24,000 college graduates in India in the next financial year, up from the 15,000 that it had planned for current one.
HCL Technologies chief HR officer Apparao V V said there are multiple reasons why the hiring momentum is picking up. “We are doing 33% more than what we had targeted and we see a fair bit of acceleration in Q3 and Q4. The visa environment, compensation revisions and countries looking inwards have put a cap in terms of the talent available in those countries. If customers scale up their engagement, they have to go where the skills are. Last year, 70% of our increase in manpower was in India and 30% outside India. This year, it was almost 90-10. We see huge ramp-ups in India,” he said. HCL plans to hire 15,000 freshers in India and between 1,500-2,000 people onsite in the 2022 fiscal.
James Friedman of Susquehanna Financial Group (SFG) said demand is generally infrastructure-related. That’s where the “big deals” are, often with some digital wrapper, he said. “India mindshare seems once again on the rise,” he said. Infosys won the largest deal ever in its history from German automotive major Daimler that sources said is estimated at $3.2 billion. TCS won a large deal from Prudential Financial. Wipro signed a big one with German retailer Metro.
London-based IT advisory Omdia’s principal analyst Hansa Iyengar said enterprises are accelerating digital agendas and investments as the world looks at a post-pandemic recovery. “Campus recruitment is a good tool to bolster digital portfolios and delivery,” she said.
