New Delhi: It promises to a tough year for those in the Information Technology (IT) industry. Recruitments are likely to be 20% less this year as big firms like TCS and Infosys are increasing their focus on automation, says industry body Nasscom.
In June 2015, the IT industry body had predicted that the $143-billion domestic software industry might hire 2.75 lakh in 2016-17, up from about 2.3 lakh during 2014-15.
According to Nasscom chairman CP Gurnani, who is also the chief executive of TechMahindra, the drop in recruitment would not impact the revenue growth which is pegged at 10-11% in the current financial year.
"I think we are still maintaining that overall industry will grow at 10-11% this year. The hiring will not be as linier as we have seen in the past. The digital world leads to automation, automation leads to relatively lesser recruitments. Secondly, digital also means to get closer to the customer. I think you will see recruitments slowing down compared to last year. I think it will be like 15-20% relatively lesser in headcounts. But it will not impact the revenues," Gurnani said.
A recent report by Mumbai-based Centrum Broking had said that the big five software exporters - TCS, Infosys, Wipro, HCL and Cognizant - together added a net 24% fewer employees in 2015 at 77,265, thanks to their automation drive.
The massive plunge in net additions was led by the Chennai-based Cognizant (down 74.6% from 2014) and HCL (down 71%) which have been very keenly focusing on improving utilisation rates through automation, Centrum said.
"Software vendors across the pack are focusing on automation and we believe that 2015-16 will be an inflection point. The result is that these five companies have net added 24% fewer employees in 2015," the report noted, adding this came at a time when these companies' combined dollar revenue grew 9.8%.
TCS had earlier this week announced that it too would be hiring less number of freshers.
(With PTI inputs)
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