Tech cos go slow on campus hiring; TCS, Infosys buck trend

[dhilipkumar]

MUMBAI: Top four IT companies made 58,000 campus offers for the financial year 2009-10, down by 2,000 from the current year. Recruitment for Tata
Consultancy Services (TCS) and Infosys has gone up by nearly 2,000 each, a large chunk of this has come from tier I and tier II colleges, while this has gone down for Satyam and Wipro.

Campus recruitments for the year usually start in May-June of the previous year. IT companies are given first preference as they hire in greater numbers than other sectors. Engineering colleges, traditionally the recruitment bastion for IT companies, have felt most of the brunt of this drop in recruitment.

However, the decline in demand was not reflected in the pay packets as salaries being offered for 2009-10 recruits remain flat compared to 2008-09, which saw a hike of at least 10% across the software companies. TCS and Infosys offered Rs 3.15 lakh per annum to engineering graduates which is the highest salary for 2009-10.

TCS is leading the recruitment spree with 24,500 freshers for FY10 compared to the 22,400 offers it made last year. The IT major is yet to visit the IITs as the placement season has only begun for these institutes, said a spokesperson.

Wipro has hired 8,000 engineering graduates for next year, a fall of 41% compared to 2008-09. Infosys has made 20,000 offers that include engineering and science graduates. The company made 18,000 campus offers for 2008-09.

These numbers, experts say, signal that IT companies do not feel the need to increase their recruitments as the future is uncertain. "They can always recruit more as per their business

needs, even after they have started their financial year. On the other side, they can also cut down the offers made like Satyam did," said a domestic analyst on condition of anonymity.

Satyam said it will scale down its hiring projection for the year from 15,000 to 8,000 (including lateral hires). Although Satyam did not want to disclose the number of campus offers it made, sources say the offers made for FY09 are close to 6,000 and around 5,500 for the next year. A Satyam spokesperson declined to comment.

"Gross hiring is not necessarily a reliable indicator of business confidence. Hiring targets of companies are a function of their current and desired utilisation rates, acceptance ratios of their employment offers, attrition, non-linear growth aspirations among other things. Adjusting for these, estimated net hiring is probably a better indicator," said Edelweiss Capital IT analyst Viju George.