Top two infotech majors TCS and Infosys ramped up fresher recruitments three times in the year ended March 31 to a record of over 1.85 lakh as demand for technologies in the wake of the pandemic peaked and enterprises across the world shifted to digital for business continuity.
With companies fighting for a limited talent pool, attrition has also been on the rise for the last three quarters and hence supply side crunch has become a huge challenge for the firms.
Indian IT firms are looking to tackle this challenge by hiring a large number of freshers.
A case in point is the fresher hiring by TCS and Infosys. The companies made 40,000 and 21,000 campus hires in FY21. This has increased multifold in FY22 and is likely to continue. TCS and Infosys hired 100,000 and 85,000 freshers respectively in FY22.
Infosys CEO & MD Salil Parekh said that the company is looking at hiring 50,000 freshers in FY23 but could step up during the course of the year. In FY22, after the initial hiring outlook of 26,000, it stepped up the fresher hiring every quarter.
TCS shared a similar sentiment. NG Subramaniam, operations chief at TCS, said that the company is starting the year with a hiring target of 40,000 and will step it up if need be during the year.
However, rising attrition continues to raise concerns for the firms.
Rising attrition
TCS attrition increased to 17.4 percent in the quarter from 8.6 percent in the beginning of the year and 11.9 percent in the December 2021 quarter. Infosys reported 27.7 percent in attrition, up from 13.9 percent at the beginning of the year.
Rajesh Gopinathan, CEO and MD, TCS, said that the attrition numbers are likely to get worse before they moderate.
Parekh said that the initiatives the company has put in place such as employee engagement, career progression, compensation, and rotation of work are starting to have an impact.
However, margins have come under pressure. Infosys’ margins dipped 21.6 percent, below the market estimates of 23 percent. TCS too indicated near term pressures on margins, but expects them to pick up thanks to better pricing.
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