HCLTech's attrition rate declines to 21.7% in Q3FY23

Fresher addition for the quarter came in at 5,892, which was lower than the 10,339 for Q2.

Indian IT services company HCLTech, formerly HCL Technologies, added 2,945 employees in the third quarter ended December 31, 2022. The total headcount of the company at present stands at 222,270.

This is lower than the previous quarter's net addition of over 8,359 employees in Q2, but significantly lower than the 10,143 employees hired in the same quarter last fiscal.

The attrition rate decreased significantly on a QoQ basis at 21.7 percent, down from 23.8 percent in Q2 on last twelve months (LTM) basis, the company said, adding that this attrition figure excludes involuntary attrition and digital process operations. But it is much higher than 19.8 percent in the same quarter last fiscal.

HCLTech laid off 350 employees working on Microsoft's news-related products during the second quarter after the project was not renewed.

Fresher addition for the quarter came in at 5,892, which was lower than the 10,339 for Q2.

During Q1FY23 earnings call, CEO and MD C Vijayakumar had said that the company overall plans to add about 30,000 freshers this fiscal.

"In the first three quarters we have added more than 22,000 freshers. We will get pretty close to our 30,000 target by Q4, but may be marginally missing the target number. That's a moderation we are doing because of the improvement in retention rates. The extent of drop we have seen in attrition rates over the past few quarters is significant," Ram Sundararajan, chief people officer at HCLTech said while addressing the media.

The company previously said that it intends to hire 45,000 new employees in FY23. It also heavily outsourced employees from new frontier locations such as Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Romania, Mexico, Costa Rica, and Brazil.

Meanwhile, rival Infosys added 1,627 employees, a significant decrease from the 10,032  previous quarter. Earlier this week, IT services behemoth Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) reported a decline of 2,197 in net new addition, for the first time in the past 10 quarters. TCS CEO & MD Rajesh Gopinathan later explained that it was a strategised the move to improve utilisation, having doubled intake in 2021.