83% Jump in Hirings: FY22 Could be IT’s Best Ever, Shows Data

The Great Resignation has turned into the Great Reshuffle with many workers reshuffling their careers and companies pushing hiring efforts. India’s top five IT companies could see FY 2021-22 to be the best ever for net hirings. The latest analysis by Jefferies suggests that in FY22, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Infosys, HCL Technologies (HCL Tech), Wipro, and Tech Mahindra (TechM) will add a combined 150,000-160,000 employees from 87,000 in 2020-21, a growth of 83%.

The previous record high was of 90,000 employees in 2018-19, which was shattered in the first half of FY22 as they hired 110,000 employees. This has led to increased salaries due to which margins may be impacted in the next few quarters. Jefferies expects highest margin decline of Wipro and HCL Tech in the third quarter of FY 22.

TechM Chief Executive Officer C P Gurnani acknowledged the talent crunch due to increased demand for IT professionals as corporates digitize their business and stated that the consumption has increased from four sources which are IT service providers, global technology players, start-ups, and even corporates. Jefferies-ACE’s analysis shows that there is a formal sector employment boom across most BSE500 companies and that in the second quarter of FY22, employee costs rose 18%, year-on-year. They had risen 16.7% in the first quarter of FY22. Larger companies show employee costs rise 18%-19% while that figure was at least 8%-10% for smaller companies