Headcount in India's top IT firms down by over 16,000
During the second quarter of FY24, India's top IT firms, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Infosys, and HCLTech, witnessed a significant drop in headcount. The combined reduction for these three companies totaled 16,162. This decrease is mainly due to the companies' focus on utilizing their existing fresher talent and not replacing most of the attrition. This trend is likely to continue for other industry players as well.
TCS's strategy is to hire and deploy freshers
TCS saw its largest headcount reduction in five years, with a decrease of 6,333 employees. TCS Chief Human Resources Officer Milind Lakkad explained that this is part of the company's strategy to hire freshers and assign them to projects. TCS has been investing in new talent for about a year and a half, and Lakkad anticipates the headcount shrinkage to persist in upcoming quarters, although the numbers may not be as high.
Infosys focuses on utilization and optimization
Infosys experienced its most significant headcount decline in a single quarter, with a reduction of 7,530 employees. Chief Financial Officer Nilanjan Roy stated that the company hired ahead of demand, which has now slowed down, resulting in a dip in utilization. Infosys is currently focusing on enhancing utilization and optimizing its workforce. The company has a sizable fresher bench waiting to be onboarded and is not visiting campuses for recruitment at this time.
HCLTech backfills attrition with freshers
HCLTech reported a headcount decline of 2,299 employees. CEO C Vijayakumar said that much of the attrition has been backfilled with already trained freshers. The company has also been filling new work roles internally. HCLTech hired about 5,200 freshers in the first half of the fiscal year and expects to close out the year by hiring around 10,000 freshers.
