Global biggies look to India for fresh talent

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The pick-up in the economy has given a much-needed push to hiring plans in India. Global technology services and consulting majors Accenture and Deloitte are leading the way and have drawn huge recruitment plans in India.

While Accenture Chairman and CEO, William Green says that the company will be adding around 8,000 new people in India by the end of next year, taking its total employee strength to 50,000, Deloitte's Global CEO Jim Quigley says that they too are on a hiring path. They plan to hire 15,000 employees in the course of three years from the current strength of 11,000.

Yahoo Inc too has chalked out huge hiring plans as it plans to grow its operations in India, its chief executive Carol Bartz says.

Among the domestic players, Mahindra Satyam is back to hiring once again. It is set to hire 120 employees in the next one month and has recalled 1,400 of its 6,000 employees who were on the bench.

However, the hiring picture seems a bit gloomy for a number of IT majors, despite strong numbers by the top four giants in the sector. Though increments and promotions are back on track but hiring fresh recruits is not yet on the cards. Wipro is cautious and will look at fresh recruits only in the next two quarters. TCS has taken a similar call. Infosys has given wage hikes and will hire lateral employees in the third quarter.

Kris Gopalakrishnan, CEO, Infosys , says, "Wage hikes have been given but we are still cautious. We are seeing recovery but we still maintain that the worst is not yet over and caution must be exercised."

However, HCL Tech plays a different tune. It has not only given performance based increments but it will also go through its regular process of just-in-time hiring and will hire new employees as and when required.

Like HCL Tech, Pramod Bhasin, President and CEO of Genpact says that the company has always been hiring. "Unfortunately, attrition means that you have to be in the hiring business anyway. So that will continue. Hiring will now increase and we expect it to accelerate both during the fourth quarter as well as into 2010."