The $156-billion Indian IT industry, often called the biggest job creator in the organised sector, is seeing a tectonic shift in recruitment.
For the first six months of the fiscal, Cognizant, Infosys, Wipro and Tech Mahindra have all seen their employee strength actually decline — quite sharply in Cognizant’s case (by over 5,000). TCS and HCL Technologies are the only exceptions among India’s top six IT companies, but even TCS’ addition is a fraction of what it did in the first six months of the previous fiscal.
Peter Bendor Samuel of outsourcing research firm Everest Group told TOI, “The employment picture in Indian IT is changing rapidly. The intake of new campus hires in the Indian IT industry is dramatically down and looks to continue to fall. The industry will continue to be a great place for engineers with the right skills in AI, automation, and other digital skills that are in high demand. However, for those individuals who have traditional IT skills, the picture changes dramatically.”
