HCLTech sees headcount decline by 780 in Q2FY25

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India's third largest IT services major HCLTech’s headcount decreased by 780 employees in the second quarter ended September 30, 2024. This comes at a time when its rivals like Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) have started hiring again.

Total headcount in Q2 stood at 218,621.

Notably, HCLTech bucked the industry-wide hiring trend in Q4FY24, by reporting net headcount addition in both YoY and sequential basis, at a time when rivals like Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Infosys, and Wipro reported negative headcount addition.

In Q2, HCLTech added around 2,932 freshers and plans to onboard 10,000 freshers in FY25.

As of H1FY25, total fresher addition stood at 4,010. HCLTech’s attrition rate came in at 12.9 percent, a slight increase from 12.8 percent in Q2 and a YoY improvement from 14.2 percent in Q2FY24.

TCS on October 10 reported that it had hired 5,726 employees in Q2. It also onboarded 11,000 freshers out of its 40,000 full-year fresher addition target.

Ramachandran Sundararajan, chief people officer, HCLTech, "There’s a slight drop in headcount this quarter. But on a year-on-year basis after we normalised following the divestiture last quarter, our headcount is still growing. We are continuing with our fresher programmes. The campus programmes are still on. Our plans are generally made for the full year and then we review each quarter based on the demand movements."

"In to FY26, based on the hiring now, I think the focus will be on specialisation in campuses and we won’t just go by pure numbers. Those plans are getting finalised, it will be done this quarter," he added.

In April 2024, HCL Investments UK, had got into an agreement to sell its entire 49 per cent stake in a joint venture (JV) with US-based State Street International Holdings. This had led to the company losing around 7,398 employees in Q1, while the overall headcount back then had declined by 8,080.

HCLTech reported its Q2 FY25 earnings on October 14. Net profit rose 11 percent on-year to Rs 4,235 crore, beating Street expectations. India's third largest IT major's July-September 2025 revenue from operations rose to Rs 28,862 crore, up 8.2 percent from a year ago.

On a sequential basis, HCL Tech's Q2 net profit fell by a marginal 0.5 percent, while revenue grew about 3 percent on-quarter. EBIT margin came in at 18.6 percent, growing 149 basis points sequentially.