The Hindu Business Line : Brisk hiring all around as cos expand

IF it was retrenchment and pink slips a few summers ago after the tech bubble burst and 9/11 attacks impacting investments and recruitment in the technology sector, it is a different story now.

Companies are hiring rapidly to induct more techies and fight higher levels of attrition. Trends indicate that IT is back as a career destination with a bang.

According to National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom),"The Indian ICT industry, after a three-year lull is back on track, and hiring rapidly. The global economic downturn, which lasted over three years and brought in its wake pink slips, benching and retrenchment, appears like a thing of the past. Indian IT services companies, which were impacted by this slowdown and put a cap on their hiring to cut costs and maintain momentum, are getting back into the swing of things and its beginning to look like business as usual."

There appears to be an upsurge in demand for professionals with specialised expertise. This demand has picked up since most large IT players have moved up the value chain, transcending the software coding and maintenance barriers to get into the high-end IT consulting, systems integration, infrastructure management, package implementation and product development realms. But the availability of for highly skilled manpower is becoming acute. This heightened recruitment has been further fuelled by transnational companies setting up R&D centres in the country.

A recent market survey by McKinsey featuring 5,500 senior corporate leaders, one-third of European companies with revenues higher than $1 billion, prefer India to China as an R&D destination. Within Asia Pacific, India is looked upon as a source of talent. The survey revealed that 71 per cent of respondents considered India a key source for talent.

Outlining the Indian tech scenario, Nasscom noted that Indian IT companies expanded their employee base by almost 45 per cent during 2003-04 and reported brisk hiring in the first quarter of 2004.

MNCs too are focussing on expansion and hiring. As competition, particularly within the offshore IT services outsourcing market is heating up, leading global MNCs in the country are beefing up their operations and manpower base to face the challenges. The idea is to combat the strength of Indian companies, which have made tremendous headway in the IT services exports segment and have large software development facilities across the country.

While Accenture, Ernst & Young and IBM Global Services stepped up hiring during 2003-04, domestic majors such as Wipro added around 12,000 employees for its outsourcing business by the fiscal year ending March 31, 2004.

Infosys added over 8,000 people in 2004 - - that works out to about 52 per cent of its employee base in 2003. Satyam added 44 per cent of its 2003 employee base during 2004. HCL saw its employee roster expand by close to 70 per cent.

Infosys, Wipro, Satyam, HCL, Hughes Software, i-flex, Mastek and Patni together added over 26,000 people in 2003-04.