nfotech hiring shrinks 40%

BANGALORE: The boom element in hiring seems to be substantially diminishing. Thanks to the economic turbulence in the domestic and international markets. Tech hiring has shrunk upto 40%. Subprime crisis, unprecedented rise in oil and commodity prices and the Indian economy reeling under a double-digit inflationary regime, its no surprise that the people-boom is taking a beating, said Mohan Menon, CEO, Sentient Consulting, a corporate advisory firm.

The country has over a million tech workers of which IT services alone accounts for almost 7 lakh, on an average, 15%, that means 1,05,000 people are on the benches.

“Ideally, no company wants to have people on benches. So, there is a huge amount of focus on moving the bench out into productivity. That's where a lot of tech firms are going to save on additional hiring. And this will definitely eat into the quantum of hiring,” said Amitabh Das, MD Vaticonsulting, a recruitment process outsourcing firm.

“In the coming quarters, many tech firms are likely to revise their people outlook downwards. It’s already happening unofficially. Hiring is almost nil among BFSI firms, IT consulting too has impacted greatly. The industry in general is reworking on hiring outlook. The line up of additional inputs (talent) is pretty thin for many,” observed B S Murthy, CEO, Human Capital.

According to Manish Sabrawal, founding partner, Teamlease, “There is something weird going on in this downturn. There has been a clear blunting in salary growth but unlike most slowdowns where lower attrition is almost a leading indicator, this time attrition continues to chug away. Well, may be that's the only silver lining in the cloud.”