NEW DELHI: With schools and colleges reopening amid strict Covid protocols, IT companies too are calling back employees to office as majority of the pandemic-imposed restrictions have now been lifted.
According to market intelligence firm UnearthInsight, the Indian information technology services industry is likely to see a gross employee addition of around 450,000 people in the second half of financial year 2022 (H2FY22). These hires are largely laterals/experienced employees, though the intake of freshers is way more than what it was last year.
With higher attrition of 17-19 per cent in the second half of the year, the industry is likely to have a net employee addition of about 175,000. According to the firm’s hiring outlook, 2,50,000 freshers have been added so far in FY22 by more than 30 domestic and multinational tech firms in the country.
"IT Industry’s perceived “War on Talent” is real and it’s getting intense with attrition is a rising concern for the industry. It’s crucial for the industry to focus on Employee Value Proposition (EVP) even more aggressively to keep attrition in check," said Gaurav Vasu, Founder and CEO at UnearthInsight.
In fresher hiring in FY22, the top five companies are likely to be Tata Consultancy Services, which will hire 77,000 freshers (43,000 hired in H1FY22 plus 34,000 in H2FY22); Cognizant, which has said it will hire 45,000 freshers; Infosys (45,000 freshers); Tech Mahindra, (15,000 freshers); and HCL Technologies (22,000 in FY22 and 30,000 in FY23).
Upskilling
Indian technology firms are majorly focusing on upskilling programs both in India and global markets. While TCS has leveraged multiple learning tools on iON learning platform and initiatives for reskilling its global workforce, 90% of Infosys employees have learned through LEX, a platform that helps them reskill and upskill to meet the evolving requirements of the organizations. "The Top 2 Indian IT players offer integrated learning platforms for different personas of employees. Other Tier I and Tier II firms like Wipro, HCL, Tech Mahindra, Mindtree, Mphasis are working towards to create a single interface for employees for learning, upskilling, reskilling and deployment," added the report.
What about attrition?
UnearthInsight expects H2FY22 attrition to be higher at 17-19 per cent over the last 12 months. The trend is likely to remain the same in the next two quarters too but FY23 is likely likely to see a marginal improvement around 16-18 per cent. The fresher addition across the next two quarters may help IT services firms control overall attrition in the industry. The rise in industry attrition is largely driven by the supply-side challenges which are transient and are expected to normalize from FY23.
Increasing Cloud competition among tech giants
Unearthinsight estimates $80 billion to $100 billion in cloud services revenue for the IT services industry by 2030 as Cloud itself is coming up with newer tools, newer opportunities, newer ways of connecting, newer methods of building algorithms. Accenture recorded very strong double-digit growth in Cloud Industry X and Security while Capgemini's Digital and Cloud services primarily underpinned performance, accounting for around two thirds of activity and recording strong double-digit year-on-year growth. HCL Technologies expects to hire 10,000 people to its AWS practice called Amazon Web Services (AWS) Business Unit, while Wipro launched Full Stride Cloud Services which integrates their consulting and technology capabilities along with Cloud Studio-based assets.
Tech Mahindra's management foresees high adoption of cloud as one of its pillars of growth while Infosys realigned its strategic focus to scale digital transformation projects over the last two years, with significant investments in sales, increased large deal participation, and increased flexibility on deal structure, resulting in a sharp increase in large transformation deals around DX projects, hybrid cloud adoption, and automation, said UnearthInsight.
On Software Product and Platform Business side, Unearthinsight estimates $15 billion to $20 billion revenues by 2030 for Top Tier IT services firms. TCS, Infosys and HCL will continue to expand in the US, Southeast Asia and India.
