Freshers look for other jobs, as IT companies delay joining

“I got an offer from Infosys, and my friend has an offer from Wipro. We got the offers this March and are awaiting news of onboarding. Many who received offers in January-February have not been onboarded yet; so, we do not know when our turn will come, if at all,” said Anupriya K., who graduated from an engineering college in Andhra Pradesh.

Anupriya is scouting for another job because she cannot afford to go without a salary after graduating.

“My batchmates are contacting companies whose jobs they did not take up and opted for the IT firms,” ​​the 23-year-old added.

Technology service providers are one of India’s largest recruiters from college campuses, and they went into a mammoth hiring spree in FY22.

According to news reports, Infosys hired 85,000 in FY22, Wipro 17,000, TCS 100,000, and HCL 23,000 campus graduates or freshers in the last fiscal.

While the offers were made when the business outlook was robust, the tech firms are now confronting an uncertain economic outlook because of fears of a recession in the US, their biggest market.

Increased travel and subcontracting costs, margin pressures and higher costs of work-from-office are prompting companies to absorb new hires at a slower pace. They are also trying to improve cost efficiency by reducing annual hikes, variable payouts and slowing the pace of replacement hiring. In addition, the firms are reskilling employees instead of hiring laterally, as manpower utilization in the sector is expected to ebb over the next couple of quarters.

“The onboarding is dependent on business coming in from clients. The batch awaiting placements is not very keen on the tech companies,” said a placement officer at one of the National Institutes of Technology (NIT) who did not want to be named.

Typically, tech service companies make most of their recruitment from campuses or hiring drives. The drives occur all year round, while campus placements start from December and continue until April.

Salaries vary depending on the profile. In many tier II and tier III colleges where the tech firms conduct mass recruitments, the starting salary offer is ₹3.6 lakh. However, in the premier ones, the compensation can be manifold, and only a handful are recruited.

According to various news reports, campus hiring for tech firms in FY23 is expected to be 50,000 by Infosys, 40,000 by Wipro, 45,000 by TCS, and 45,000 by HCL.

The tech firms said they are in touch with prospective employees. Infosys stressed that entry-level hiring “is a key driver” for the company’s future, and it has “onboarded a record number of hires” during the past few quarters. However, it maintained that recruitment is client-driven.

“Hiring at Infosys is always aligned to client requirements throughout the year and, consequently, we spread the joining dates of various batches to align with the changes in project schedules and to ensure employees have access to the right training,” the company said in an email response.

Wipro said, “it will honor all offer letters that have been made to deserving candidates”. On Saturday, Nascent Information Technology Employees Senate (NITES) asked the ministry of labor and employment to look into the onboarding delay at Wipro in absorbing 2,000 campus graduates .

“Livelihood of thousands of students and employees is now jeopardized. These students & employees applied for a job in Wipro around September 2021,” NITES said in its letter.

HCL denied any onboarding delays. “There is no delay in onboarding freshers, and it is progressing as per timelines,” the company said.

Queries emailed to TCS remained unanswered.

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