A tough global market is forcing information technology companies to go slow on their hiring plans this year. While campus recruitments have been delayed, lateral hiring has also been put on pause mode. Salary hikes to the existing employees may also be lower this year.

“Considering some of the pressures in the IT industry, we do expect that the salary increases could be lower than last year. We will take a decision only in July after we review the market situation,” Farid Kazani, Group Chief Financial Officer and Finance Director, Mastek said. Companies such as HCL Technologies have not inducted fresh engineering graduates, who were given joining letters based on a test conducted on September 30.

According to analysts, the utilisation of benched employees (kept ready for any immediate project) are also expected to come down more this year as IT firms look to cut down on training costs. “We have seen Infosys’ and TCS’ utilisation of employees coming down to 69 per cent and 80 per cent, respectively, in 2012 compared to the previous year,” Vimal Gohil, IT analyst at Asit C. Mehta Investment Intermediates said.

“Compared to last year, we expect campus recruitments to be 40 per cent lower. Last year, we saw 200,000 offers made for campus hirings,” said Kris Lakshmikanth, Founder, Headhunters India. This, he says, is because no new areas of investment have been made by companies in the US which account for almost 70 per cent of the country’s $100 billion IT exports.

Industry body Nasscom said that the IT industry, which added 2.30 lakh jobs in 2011-12, is expected to add only 1.50-2 lakh jobs in the current fiscal. According to Som Mittal, President, Nasscom, despite uncertainties net hiring will still continue in 2013. “Though we do not have estimates for this year yet, we see 2013-14 to be positive for the industry,” he said.

However, it is not all gloom as some of the IT firms are still looking for talent. “Yes it is a slow year for hiring. But we expect to hire 500 people in calendar 2013, of which, at least 250 will be freshers,” Ganesh Natarajan, Vice-Chairman and CEO, Zensar Technologies, said.

“We have transparent and very efficient levers to measure the utilisation rates,” Hari T. Chief People's Officer and Chief Marketing Officer, Mahindra Satyam, said. The company will hire 1,500-2,000 from campuses for 2013-14, he added.

>ronendrasingh.s@thehindu.co.in

(With inputs from T.E. Raja Simhan in Chennai, Rajesh Kurup in Mumbai, K. V. Kurmanath in Hyderabad and Venkatesh Ganesh in Bangalore.)

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