The top 4 tech firms hired 2.2 lakh freshers in FY22; how do they plan to tackle attrition?

Here’s good news for jobseekers in IT industry. The top four IT majors hired 2.2 lakh freshers in 2021-22 and plan to hire at least 1.6 lakh freshers in the current financial year to increase the talent supply pool and beat attrition, according to data provided by the companies after their annual results announcements.

TCS, Infosys, Wipro and HCL hired a total of 2,27,000 freshers in the just-concluded financial year, with TCS leading the pack with 1,00,000 fresher hires. Infosys said it hired 85,000 freshers in India and abroad.  Further, the companies plan to hire at least 1,63,000 freshers this year. Infosys plans to hire 50,000 in India and abroad, while TCS is eyeing an initial target of 40,000. Wipro and HCL have set targets of 38,000 and 35,000, respectively.  
The fresher hiring number for 2022-23 may go up because companies have said they may have to increase their hiring based on the demand. Last year, too, several companies more than doubled their fresher intake targets set at the beginning of the year owing to the soaring demand for tech talent in the country

However, attrition rates are a problem that remains to be tackled by the major companies.

On when attrition is expected to stabilise, TCS CEO Rajesh Gopinathan had said, “As we look forward two quarters ahead, we think that attrition will flat line and then start tapering.” The situation will ease when the supply, from increased fresher hiring across the industry over the last four quarters, becomes available for productive use, he said because, “Fresher hiring and productive use of freshers is a long-cycle activity”.

India produces an estimated 1.3 million or 13 lakh engineering graduates every year. Incidentally, that’s roughly the total software workforce size of the four majors put together. The top four firms together employ 13,26, 938 software professionals as of March 31, 2022, with TCS accounting for 5,92,195 employees.

The second largest IT firm, Infosys, witnessed the highest attrition among the four majors, closing the year at 27.7%. Wipro came second with 23.8%, while HCL witnessed 21.9% of its workforce leave. TCS performed the best in this metric with 17.4% attrition, but it was still all-time high for the firm.

Infosys Chief Financial Officer Nilanjan Roy had said, “Over a period of six months, with more freshers coming in, you will see moderation of this from a more macro perspective.”

Wipro CHRO Saurabh Govil had said their quarterly annualised attrition rate moderated by 500 bps. “But the pressure continues as demand is robust… We have hired a lot of freshers and hired laterally. So, managing demand requirements will not be a challenge for us.”

“Towards the second half of FY23, we expect the situation to stabilise,” according to HCL MD & CEO C Vijaykumar.

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