Cognizant Technology Solutions plans to add around 50,000 college graduates in India in 2022. Last year, it added a record 33,000 college graduates — nearly double than the 17,000 hired in 2020.

Cognizant, the US-based IT company with a large employee base in India, ended 2021 with the highest ever employment of 3,30,600 employees — up 14 per cent year-over-year. During 2021, the company facilitated more than 14,000 job moves across 40 countries; revitalised its campus recruitment programme in India, established new compensation measures and a revised promotion cycle to retain employees and invested heavily in upskilling, Brian Humphries, CEO, Cognizant, told analysts.

The company reported a 31 per cent voluntary annualised attrition. While measuring attrition, it counts the entire company, including trainees and corporate across IT services and BPO. “We have been working aggressively to mitigate attrition levels, whilst intensifying our efforts and focus on employee training, promotion cycles, professional development and total rewards,” he said.

“We are expecting elevated attrition through the course of the year. We are going to work very hard to try to mitigate that and try and minimise the impact on the business, the implications of attrition in our quarter across financial, commercial implications as well as employee implications,” said Humphries.

The majority of the attrition is at the junior levels and certain skills, he added.

Record numbers

Meanwhile, Cognizant ended 2021 with record numbers. Net profit was up 82 per cent at $576 million for the fourth quarter ended December 31, 2021 against $316 million over the same period last year. It beat the Street and reported the highest ever quarter revenue of $4.8 billion — up 14.5 per cent over the corresponding period last year.

Net profit for 2021 increased by 54 per cent to $2.14 billion ($1.4 billion). Annual revenue rose by 10 per cent to $18.5 billion — the highest ever. The 2021 annual revenue of $18. 5 billion also marked the company’s return to double-digit annual revenue growth for the first time since 2015, says a press release.

The company’s performance during this period amid unprecedented demand for IT services and digital transformation led to several significant milestones in the company’s 27-year history. All the sectors, including financial services, healthcare, products and resources, and communications, media and technology, reported strong revenue growth during the year.

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