BENGALURU : Hiring of IT professionals this year is expected to gain momentum only by the third quarter (Oct-Dec), which is a seasonally weak quarter for IT companies, as recruitments are being deferred to the latter part of the year owing to the covid-19 pandemic.
“Typically, the peak of hiring is during the first two quarters (April-September) and the third quarter is seasonally slow. But this year, we expect hiring to pick up in Q3 as many of the projects got deferred and we can also expect a tapering of the pandemic from there on after peaking in August," said Sanju Ballurkar, president at Experis, the IT recruitment arm of Manpower group India.
The demand in the next few months will be driven by captives in the healthcare and telecom sectors as they have been witnessing increased momentum throughout the pandemic, said Ballurkar. “The IT services companies will continue to account for the mass hiring though."
For the first quarter ended 30 June, the net addition of employees at the top IT companies was the lowest in several years as most of the lateral hiring and new joining were deferred to later quarters. While at Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) Ltd, the headcount declined by 4,788 employees, at Infosys Ltd and Wipro Ltd, the headcount dropped by 3,138 and 1,082 respectively on a sequential basis.
The US government’s temporary ban on the H1-B visa will also lead to an uptick in hiring by the global in-house centres (GICs) or captives in India as they will need to fill the void created by the lack of on-shore talent.
“The lack of visas and tougher immigration rules will prompt more people being hired in India. Captives are also expected to show enhanced hiring trends in India as more outsourcing or offshoring happens," said Lohit Bhatia, president, Indian Staffing Federation.
Most of the large enterprises in the banking and retail segments have embarked on digital transformation at some level and consequently skills in the digital space will continue to see an increased demand.
“Robotic process automation (RPA), full stack developer, Python continue to see high demand as well as roles in cloud, cyber security, and analytics. Salesforce, SAP, continue to have large need and other newer skill areas like Kubernetes, Microservices are growing as well," Bhatia added.
IT hiring in the digital space will rise in a post-pandemic world as “digital solutions have seamlessly dovetailed into the overall business strategy of organizations to ensure better adaptability to the new normal," said Ramesh Alluri Reddy, director (Managed Services & Professional Staffing), Adecco India. “Q3 will see a good amount of revival across IT services."
The IT sector continues to contribute to the growth of overall hiring activities as the leading job creator in the country. According to the latest Naukri Jobspeak report, the demand for IT professionals grew 21% in the month of June versus previous month although the overall hiring in the industry is still down 42% on a year-on-year basis.
The BPO and IT-enabled services sector that acts as auxiliary functions for many industries, have suffered under the covid-19 lockdown but with unlock 1.0 coming into force, it has seen a 48% month-on-month growth in job listings on Naurki.com in June.
Click here to read the Mint ePaperLivemint.com is now on Telegram. Join Livemint channel in your Telegram and stay updated
