India’s top IT companies, including Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Infosys, HCLTech, Wipro and Tech Mahindra, are back on campuses to scout for fresh engineering graduates, after a year-long lull in fresher hiring amid a slowing demand environment.
Around 81,000–88,000 fresher roles will be up for grabs in the current financial year across these five top IT players, a Moneycontrol analysis of the announcements made by these firms shows.
The country’s largest software exporter TCS will account for nearly half of these at around 40,000, similar to its FY24 numbers. In FY23, it had added 44,000 freshers. As of the June quarter this fiscal, it hired about 11,000 freshers.
"Our key strategy has been to basically hire from the campus. During the quarter, or during the year, some quarter planning of that also happens. We figure out what are the skill gaps we have, and based on that we hire," TCS chief HR officer Milind Lakkad said.
Infosys, which skipped campus hiring for at least three quarters in FY24, plans to recruit round 15,000-20,000 freshers this fiscal. In FY24, Infosys hired 11,900 freshers, a 76 percent drop from more than 50,000 in FY23.
"Last multiple quarters we have moved to agile hiring base. We hire freshers from on and off the campus. This quarter we had a 2,000-person net decline, which was lower than the previous quarters. Our utilisation is already at 85 percent, so we have little headroom now left. As we start seeing growth we will look at hiring," Infosys chief financial officer (CFO) Jayesh Sanghrajka said.
HCLTech added around 12,141 freshers in FY24 and about 26,734 in FY23. This year, the count is expected to be between 10,000 and 12,000 and hired 1,078 freshers in the first quarter.
“For FY25, our go in position is about 10,000. So the off-campus cycle we did in the last quarter, we have more than 10 percent of the plan coming from that. From the campus cycle for this quarter, we have already released the offers which covers another 15 percent of that plan, and the next cycle too is on,” HCLTech chief people officer Ramachandran Sundararajan.
Wipro shied away from sharing details of FY24, saying it wanted to focus on clearing on-boarding backlog from previous years. Previously in FY23, it had added 22,000 freshers. The company skipped going to campus and reported six consecutive quarters of headcount decline.
But in the June quarter, it said it will start going to colleges again with a target to add around 10,000-12,000 employees, who will be a mix of people hired on and off campus. As of Q1, Wipro had hired 3,000 freshers.
Tech Mahindra plans to add 6,000 freshers in FY25, of which it hired 1,000 in the June quarter.
For Wipro and Tech Mahindra, which are in the middle of turning around their businesses with new CEOs, building a strong pipeline of freshers is key to their strategy, which will also help them in managing costs better in a challenging business environment.
Wipro’s chief human resources officer Saurabh Govil said the company will complete its backlog of fresher on-boarding in FY25.
“We have done our relationships and partnerships with certain institutes. So, we will go for hiring on campus and off campus this year. We also plan to hire a similar number next year. Very clearly we are building muscle so that we are there ready as our growth comes back. Our utilisation rate has reached its peak, so this is the right time for us to look at our supply chain,” Govil said during the Q1 earnings conference.
Tech Mahindra is working to implement its Vision 2027, a programme to turnaround and diversify business and growth.
It has launched Project Fortius, through which the company plans to hire, train and continue deploying early-career professionals and freshers, which will help it manage costs.
“We continue to build our employee pyramid as we on boarded freshers for the talent pool this quarter and we continue to add more in the coming quarters. Investing in this is a long-term perspective for us as the single-most important factor. We will also continue to upskill people in a strategic narrative,” Tech Mahindra CFO Rohit Anand said.
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