Better bench strength: IT hirings seen at pre-Covid levels in FY24

So far the top three IT firms have announced their third quarter numbers and the dip in attrition rates and a higher bench strength seems to be signalling towards a normal year for hiring in FY24

After a year of supply-side constraints due to high demand for work after the pandemic, it looks like 2023-24 (FY24) will see a ‘normalised pattern’ of hiring.
 

So far, the top three information technology (IT) majors have announced their third quarter (Q3) numbers for 2022-23 (FY23).

Dip in attrition rates and higher bench strength seem to be signalling a normal year for hiring in FY24.
 

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) said that for FY24, the range for total hiring would be between 125,000 and 150,000.
 

TCS in 2021-22 (FY22) had given offers to over 110,000 campus hopefuls. For FY23, it has so far added 42,000 trainees and will end the year with a few thousand more. For Q3FY23, the company saw a dip in hires because of the aggressive recruitment it did in FY22 and the first three quarters of FY23.
 

“This quarter is also the sum result of what has been happening over the past year or so. We did not feel the requirement to hire more as we had excess numbers and they were coming off the training period and ready to get productively deployed. We still have 25,000 people on the bench. From next year, we will be back to the rhythm of pre-pandemic operations, in terms of hiring and induction,” said N Ganapathy Subramaniam, chief operating officer and executive director, TCS.
 

Infosys, the country’s second-largest IT services provider, had a hiring target of 50,000 from campuses for FY23. So far, the company has onboarded 46,000. In FY22, the company had hired 85,000.

 

During its Q3 media briefing, the company did not elaborate on any guidance on hiring as it shared the details at the end of the financial year. But analysts pointed out that in Q3, it added 1,627 employees. Compare this with Q3FY22 numbers, when Infosys’ net addition stood at 54,778 employees.
 

When asked if the company would be hiring more for FY24, Nilanjan Roy, chief financial officer, Infosys, said: “We have a very substantial bench strength. I think our utilisation at 81.7 per cent is one of the lowest we’ve had. We have some headroom there. We have built a large fresher pipeline.”
 

With a target of 30,000 recruits this year, HCLTech, too, added 22,000 in the first three quarters of FY23. In FY22, the company onboarded 40,000. During a media call, the management stated that it was working towards a pyramid structure and created a bench which would take care of growth.
 

Human resource (HR) experts Business Standard spoke to acknowledged that hiring among the top IT players would come back to pre-pandemic levels.
 

“Because of macro uncertainty, we believe that hiring will be cautious at least for the first two quarters and then pick up — both on campus and laterally. We are already seeing a slowdown in lateral hiring,” said a senior executive from a leading HR consultancy.