IT Hiring Revives, Sector To Add Up To 3.5 Lakh Jobs In FY25
Hiring activity had dipped drastically, as the growth momentum of the sector was marred by macroeconomic headwinds.
After slow-to-no hiring action in FY24, the Indian IT sector is reviving its hiring plans for FY25, and is set to add around 3,50,000 jobs. This comes as the demand environment for the sector improves, and companies look to build their talent pipeline.
Hiring activity had dipped drastically, as the growth momentum of the sector was marred by macroeconomic headwinds. According to Nasscom, the tech industry added only 60,000 new jobs in FY24, lower than 2,70,000 jobs added in FY23. IT majors even saw a fall in growth in total employee count last year. However, the hiring outlook is now turning positive.
Sundar Eshwar, business head, IT staffing at Xpheno, said, “Having started FY25 with drop in headcounts, top Indian IT firms have to compensate for the degrowth before registering net headcount additions. The current outlook for the tech sector's net growth in current fiscal remains in the 2,00,000-2,50,000 as seen in FY24. This translates to over 3,25,000-3,50,000 hiring for compensating degrowth and expansion hiring. Over 60% of this growth would potentially come from the collective of top IT firms.”
Freshmen will be the primary target for hiring, with some lateral hiring added in. Krishna Vij, business head at TeamLease Digital, said that freshers are likely to make up a significant portion of total hires, driven by economic uncertainties and the need for cost-effective talent acquisition.
While freshers are a priority, there will also be a focus on lateral hires for specialised roles to balance innovation with immediate skill needs. She estimated a 5-8% increase in overall headcount in FY25, as compared to FY24 and fresher hiring to increase by 10-12%.
Large IT services firms have indicated a substantial uptick in fresher hiring. In FY25, Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. will be hiring 40,000 freshers, HCL Technologies Ltd. 10,000 freshers, Infosys Ltd. 15,000-20,000 freshers, and Wipro Ltd. up to 12,000 freshers, companies said in their recent Q1 earnings announcement.
“Our utilisation is already at 85%, we have a little headroom left, so as we start seeing growth we will look at hiring. We're looking at hiring 15,000-20,000 freshers this year depending on the growth," Jayesh Sanghrajka, Infosys' chief financial officer, said during the earnings call.
Similarly, Wipro's Chief Human Resources Officer Saurabh Govil said, "After a break of a year, we have started onboarding freshers from campus. We would also be completing all our backlog of offers made in this fiscal and partner with institutes and go off campus for hiring."
Replacement hiring to compensate for the fall in growth will all be lateral hires, while the expansion hiring will be a mix of entry-level talent and freshers. Given the low base value for relative growth, FY25 could well see a 100% YoY growth in fresher hiring action, with intakes reaching a moderate 1,00,000-1,20,000 mark, said Xpheno’s Eshwar.
Underlining the roles companies will be hiring for, Aditya Mishra, CEO, CIEL HR Services, said, “We see a demand for the latest technologies such as data scientists, data engineers, AI/ML engineers, Salesforce developers, big data engineers, cloud specialists. The usual roles in full stack development, Microsoft technologies, Java, Python, Node JS, Golang, DevOps, UI/UX and QA continue too.”
For freshers, entry-level positions such as junior developers, data analysts, and technical support engineers are common. More experienced professionals are being sought for roles like senior software engineers, data scientists, cybersecurity analysts, cloud architects, and project managers, explained Vij.
However, the operational efficiency achieved by implementation of Generative AI may affect the volume of manpower required by companies. “Eventually, the impact of AI will be to reduce the manpower requirements in all sectors, including the software development industry. In FY24, use of AI in the IT services sector helped the companies deliver revenues similar to that of FY23 with less headcount,” Mishra said.
