India's top 4 IT companies likely to onboard over 2 lakh freshers in FY22

A financial year which is turning out to be challenging one in terms of talent retention for India's top IT service companies has proven to be a boom for fresh engineering college graduates. India's top four IT services firms are on the course to hire over 2 lakh freshers/ engineering graduates for FY22 with nearly 1 lakh being added in Q4 (December- March 2022) itself. Data collated from the Q3 earnings reports by the top four IT companies suggests that the addition of freshers to India's tech workforce is likely the highest ever in FY22, as the companies look to invest in recruitment, retention, and upskilling of talent.

This comes at a time when these companies have struggled to retain the existing workforce and have consistently reported high attrition rates in past few consecutive quarters. Moreover, these growing investments in talent acquisition, upskilling and offering higher remunerations is also impacting the profits of the companies, although, the projects/ client confidence has not dented, according to commentaries from the managements of Tier-1 IT firms.

India's largest IT service company Tata Consultancy Service (TCS) has surpassed its earlier target of onboarding 55,000 freshers in FY22 and has already hired 77,000. The company is looking to onboard more than 30,000 this quarter, which would take the total number of freshers onboarded in FY22 to 1 lakh -- highest ever in a financial year by an Indian company.

Its close rival Infosys, which has outperformed its peers in terms of revenue growth but reported the highest attrition at 25.5 per cent, will hire 55,000 engineering graduates this fiscal as a part of its global graduate hiring programme, which involves upskilling/ hiring the college graduates from overseas geographies like the UK and the US, among others.

Wipro too has set a target of hiring 17,000 freshers in FY22 and more than 22,000 next fiscal.

"We have added in three quarters what took 11 quarters in the past and remain focused on building world class talent and on ensuring that growth isn't constrained," Thierry Delaporte, Wipro's CEO, said in the company's earnings press conference. He further pointed out that attrition is expected to stabilise, although he expects it would take a few more quarters for it to slow down.

Agreed, Apparao VV, Chief Human Resources Officer, HCL Tech. "We see the attrition rates flattening over next few quarters. But this quarter and next is going to be challenging as far as talent acquisition and retention is concerned," Apparao said.

Remunerations expected to grow 2x

Global recruitment firm Randstad India predicts that remunerations and salaries of new recruits could rise by almost 2x, especially at a time when the companies are offering incentive packages with work from anywhere facilities.

Yeshab Giri, Chief Commercial Officer - Staffing & Randstad Technologies, Randstad India told Business Today that fresher hiring in the Indian IT sector "looks promising in the quarter-ending March 2022 as the industry gears to perform at normal operational levels. Many IT giants in the country have announced plans to hire at least 50,000 to 65,000  employees each by 2022."

He added that talent will be sourced across job roles and fields of expertise in the sector due to increase in demand for a highly-skilled and cost effective workforce. "We also anticipate that the reverse migration of graduates who are looking to 'work from anywhere' will be able to derive benefits of attractive pay packages and flexible timings," he said.

Giri points out that as long as talent attraction and retention remains a challenge for the IT companies, so will the salaries rise for job seekers who are able to bring to the table niche skills and expertise.

"Many of these established IT  companies are looking to widen their geographical footprint and adopt digitised hiring to bridge the supply gap for key talent. Due to the sudden outbreak of Omicron, hiring in both metro and non-metro cities is being done through online platforms and social media networks. Moreover, colleges in Tier 2 and 3 cities are now connecting graduates to a wide variety of companies through online guest lectures and interview programs, thereby, opening up avenues for companies to hire talent in remote regions," Giri said.
 
Virtual onboarding

The immminent challenge will be to onboard and provide orientation to tens and thousands of freshers in a virtual environment when the companies have already returned to hybrid model.

"Due to the pandemic only about 3 per cent of the company's workforce are going to office and current atmosphere has created history by changing the traditional hiring pattern to virtual recruitment and onboarding remotely. Fresh graduate hiring is no longer a seasonal venture. Large companies have already mentioned plans of hiring approximately more than 2 lakh freshers through the course of the year," argued Siva Prasad Nanduri, Business head - IT Staffing - TeamLease Digital.

Nanduri is of the opinion that onboarding processes in companies have become fully digitised now. Moreover, organisations are adapting to role-based strategies, and are emphasising more on learning and developing core competencies for the new hires.

"Digital onboarding tools have simplified automated asset assignment process and technology tools have been setup as per job roles and location. Many of these programmes are linked towards ensuring business continuity in the current situation," he said.

Also read: HCL Tech to hire 20,000-22,000 freshers in FY22