IT majors offer 55,000 jobs; move to offset attrition

Domestic IT giants have begun the new fiscal on a strong note in terms of employee additions and the momentum is only likely to gather steam in the days ahead, going by the plans of Infosys and TCS to hire more than 55,000 employees in FY’07.

While Infosys, TCS and Wipro added nearly 18,695 employees to their payrolls during the April-June quarter ended June 30, industry experts see more new job opportunities during rest of the fiscal, notwithstanding the underlying concerns over the potential impact of soaring wage inflation on companies’ profit margins.

The country’s second largest software exporter Infosys added 8,907 employees during the June quarter, while industry leader TCS announced gross addition of 7,095 employees in the same period.

While Infosys plans to hire 25,000 employees this year, TCS announced it would increase the headcount by 30,500 people.

Another software major Wipro recruited 2,693 employees during the April-June period this year, taking its total staff count to 56,435.

During the latest quarter, abourt 2,000 employees joined Infosys on a single day, which underlines the company’s continued focus on investment in creating training and recruitment engine to meet its growth objectives.

Infosys HRD chief TV Mohandas Pai said during the company’s Q1 results announcement recently. "We are well on the way of hiring 25,000 (gross) employees for the year, our employee policies and investment in education and training have made Infosys the employer of choice."

Infosys plans to add 10,000 employees in the last two quarters of the current fiscal. During the first quarter, it added 4,200 freshers, while the lateral additions stood at 2,140 employees, which excludes the job additions at the company’s BPO subsidiary Progeon.

Attrition trends

Industry experts said the robust recruitment plans of the IT companies was also aimed at offsetting the impact of high attrition rates plaguing the market.

The attrition rate at Infosys increased marginally to 11.9 per cent in the first quarter from 11.2 per cent in the year-ago period.

TCS continued to maintain the lowest attrition rate in the industry at 10.6 per cent in the June quarter.

However, Wipro witnessed a three-year high attrition level during the quarter, which industry experts said, could be due to a performance review. Wipro reported a first-quarter attrition rate of 15 per cent adding that the wage pressures are a concern.

Out of the total job additions of 2,693 people in June quarter at Wipro, which has expressed its willingness for a more aggressive stance on acquisitions, 409 employee additons were due to the acquisitions completed by the company.

According to IT industry body NASSCOM, the technology services segment would hike employee count to 390,000 in 2006 and has a demand for 8,50,000 professionals and 1.4 million back office professionals by year 2010.

In 2005, Infosys, Wipro, Satyam and TCS increased their headcount by 56,000 people and have continued with robust hiring momentum since then.

Satyam, another leading IT company, is also likely to come out with strong job additions for the June quarter as well as its future hiring plans, when the company announces its results tomorrow. — PTI