IT services log in 50% reduction in job openings from last year

Representative image: Reuters

Available jobs in the IT Services sector dropped by over 50 percent year-on-year in October, according to data from Xpheno’s Active Jobs Outlook Report. The IT services sector had 60,000 active job openings in October, its lowest in 22 months. The number of openings fell 14 percent as compared to September.

Active openings are those that are directly listed by the company over the past four weeks and accept applications.

With this, the specialist staffing company said that IT Services’ active job volume has continued to decline for eight months. Additionally, this sector now makes up 27 percent of jobs available, the first time it has dropped below 30 percent in 20 months.

Net employee addition by IT majors Tata Consultancy Services, Wipro, Infosys and HCLTech saw a 45 percent fall in Q2 when compared to the previous quarter.

As per the report, the tech cohorts — services, product companies and startups — all saw active job openings decline in October.

Overall, the IT sector’s contribution to overall active openings — services, products and internet-enabled companies — dropped below 50 percent for the first time in three years. “The sector had held dominance with the 80%+ range it has maintained over the last year. With the drop below 50 percent, the tech sector lost its position as the primary hiring sector for white collar openings,” Xpheno said.

This set of companies active jobs volume was down by 12 percent from last month —  from 1,21,000 in September to 1,06,000 in October.

Xpheno said that tech hiring’s volume and velocity continue to be impacted due to concerns surrounding inflation in local as well as key client markets.

“The Tech Sector losing its dominant contributing position in the overall active white collar openings has occurred in the backdrop of non-tech sector hiring action at the festive end of the year. Large tech enterprises reviewing and aligning their hiring plans for the rest of the fiscal is also a key factor in this shift in the sector’s position…Tech sector continues to hold back under the threat of recession, rising inflation and dropping global tech spends,” said Anil Ethanur, co-founder of Xpheno.

Ethanur said the rebalancing of hiring by the tech sector has a prominent impact on overall hiring action.

“Tech talent should brace for a slightly longer cooling-off period after the dream run in 2021 and early 2022,” he said, adding that the tech sector’s hiring is expected to bounce back in late 2022 and early 2023.

The tech services’ hiring decline is being made up by job openings in non-tech sectors such as hospitality, manufacturing, telecom and more. Non-tech sectors comprised 53 percent of all active jobs in October, compared to 42 percent in September.

Overall, active job openings across sectors, which declined for five months, saw upward movement in October, with 7 percent more job openings available in October than in the preceding month. A total of 2,25,000 jobs were available in October, from 2,10,000 in September.

Xpheno’s report said that full-time openings increased by 5 percent in October, with a total of 2,10,000 full-time employment opportunities, and make up 93 percent of all active job openings.

Part-time openings and internships remained stable, but contract openings grew by 50 percent.