Debasis Mohapatra
Bengaluru, 15 May
Engineering graduates across college campuses in India are facing the heat as the ongoing placement season sees less offer letters from Indian IT companies.
Experts are of the opinion that hiring of freshers are likely to be better than last year but a far cry from 2021 & 2022 when placement was at a peak.
Post-pandemic, Indian IT firms including TCS, Infosys, Wipro, HCL Tech, LTIMindtree, Tech Mahindra, and other mid-tier companies hired a record number of engineering graduates from college campuses.
In FY22, the Indian IT industry hired a record-breaking 600,000 freshers on the back of a surge in demand for digital services seen across the world. In FY23, the hiring number came down but still Indian IT firms hired around 250,000 freshers during this period.
However, fresher hiring came to a halt during FY2024 as most companies skipped college campuses owing to a tepid demand environment. During the last fiscal year, Indian IT industry saw a sharp fall in total headcount as large and mid-tier IT firms cut their headcount by more than 70,000. Many IT firms witnessed such a fall after two decades of consistent increase in employee base.
“IT firms over-hired freshers in the post-pandemic period. However, as the demand environment turned tepid, all IT companies were prompted to cut their employee count and stop fresher hiring. We don’t expect much change in terms of fresher hiring in 2024,” said an HR expert.
Large IT firms indicated that hiring from campuses would depend on the demand environment. India’s largest IT services firm, TCS has started fresher hiring by visiting campuses. The Tata Group company is also conducting its National Qualifier Test for recruitment of freshers from various college campuses.
“There is a lot of buzz in the campuses as we visit campuses this year. Our all India National Qualifier Test has also begun,” Chief HR Officer of TCS, Milind Lakkad has said addressing the media in the post Q4 results press conference.
However, Wipro management has indicated that it would give priority to the onboarding of freshers to whom it has rolled out offer letters earlier. Similarly, Infosys said its hiring model has changed in recent years with half of the candidates getting hired outside of campuses.
Sources in the know said that tier-II and tier-III engineering colleges are facing the maximum adverse impact of such a hiring trend.
Meanwhile, IT firms are focussed on improving their employee utilisation levels in order to protect their operating margins. Employee utilisation level means the number of employees employed in projects.
