ETtechIndia’s top software companies are making up to 30% fewer campus offers this year for the 2023 batch compared with last year, as a slowdown in their biggest markets causes uncertainties on the demand environment and attrition levels stabilise.
This even as around 5% of the offers given last year are yet to be honoured, said placement cell heads and chancellors at engineering colleges ET spoke with.
Typically, the campus placement process starts in July of every year, said D Ranganath, dean of placement and training at RV College of Engineering in Bengaluru. “The offers handed out have been 10-30% lower this year (for the batch of 2023) in number by IT services companies. This could be due to business slowdown and companies planning to reduce their manpower and other overhead costs.”
Macro issues such as high inflation as well as turmoil in the financial services sector in the US and Europe have made the demand outlook challenging for India’s $245-billion IT sector, making companies cautious on expansion and cost.
This has led analysts to forecast that net hiring of engineers by the Indian IT companies would crash by close to half in the next fiscal year starting April compared with fiscal 2023, ET reported in its March 27 edition.
However, demand for niche skills and from product-based companies have made up for much of the vacuum created by the IT companies. For example, data science and consulting hiring has been strong this year, said Ranganath.
The view was endorsed also by officials at other colleges and HR experts.
The offers are 25-30% lower this year by IT services companies who are generally the "mass recruiters", said John Bruce, dean of placement and corporate affairs at Sathyabama Institute of Science and Technology in Chennai. But despite the slowdown in hiring by IT services companies, other multinational companies, product and engineering firms have made up for it, he added.
According to staffing firms, niche skills and domain expertise like data sciences, artificial intelligence/machine learning and cybersecurity will see continued demand.
IT firms hire hundreds of thousands from engineering college campuses every year. At the beginning of FY23, India’s top four IT firms alone had forecast plans to hire 160,000-165,000 freshers.
Tata Consultancy Services, India’s largest IT services provider, did not comment, citing the “silent period” ahead of its results announcement, while an email sent to second-ranked Infosys remained unanswered as of Thursday press time.
Old ghosts
While the 2023 batch hirings are fewer, employee unions and staffing firms like Adecco India that ET spoke to said thousands of engineering graduates of batches 2022 and even 2021 were yet to be onboarded by IT services companies.
The placement head of a popular college in South India said around 5% offers were yet to be converted into employment for the 2022 batch.
“The freshers are still facing onboarding delays. These problems are mainly seen in Wipro and Capgemini,” said Harpreet Saluja, president at IT union Nascent IT Employees Senate. “Our Telegram groups have a few thousand members, and we estimate a similar number of candidates are awaiting onboarding in these two companies.”
AR Ramesh, director - managed services & professional staffing at Adecco India, said given the delays in onboarding by many IT companies, it was likely that a significant number of freshers (2021 and 2022 batches) were still waiting to be onboarded.
Some of the onboarding of the last batch of freshers (2022 batch) may spill over to later this year (2023).
In a statement, Wipro, India’s fourth largest software exporter, said it would honour all offer letters that had been made to deserving candidates.
Capgemini, in its response to ET’s queries, said: “Our onboarding process is aligned with client requirements and staggered over a period of time to factor in project schedules while also providing new joinees access to the right training.”
Mphasis said that it plans to induct candidates in a phased manner, while another IT company, LTIMindtree, declined to comment.
The efforts to push the authorities to act are also futile as there are no provisions in labour laws to enforce companies to honour their offer letters, employee unions said. The employment contract comes into place only after a person joins a company.
This even as around 5% of the offers given last year are yet to be honoured, said placement cell heads and chancellors at engineering colleges ET spoke with.
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Macro issues such as high inflation as well as turmoil in the financial services sector in the US and Europe have made the demand outlook challenging for India’s $245-billion IT sector, making companies cautious on expansion and cost.
This has led analysts to forecast that net hiring of engineers by the Indian IT companies would crash by close to half in the next fiscal year starting April compared with fiscal 2023, ET reported in its March 27 edition.
However, demand for niche skills and from product-based companies have made up for much of the vacuum created by the IT companies. For example, data science and consulting hiring has been strong this year, said Ranganath.
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The view was endorsed also by officials at other colleges and HR experts.
The offers are 25-30% lower this year by IT services companies who are generally the "mass recruiters", said John Bruce, dean of placement and corporate affairs at Sathyabama Institute of Science and Technology in Chennai. But despite the slowdown in hiring by IT services companies, other multinational companies, product and engineering firms have made up for it, he added.
According to staffing firms, niche skills and domain expertise like data sciences, artificial intelligence/machine learning and cybersecurity will see continued demand.
IT firms hire hundreds of thousands from engineering college campuses every year. At the beginning of FY23, India’s top four IT firms alone had forecast plans to hire 160,000-165,000 freshers.
Tata Consultancy Services, India’s largest IT services provider, did not comment, citing the “silent period” ahead of its results announcement, while an email sent to second-ranked Infosys remained unanswered as of Thursday press time.
Old ghosts
While the 2023 batch hirings are fewer, employee unions and staffing firms like Adecco India that ET spoke to said thousands of engineering graduates of batches 2022 and even 2021 were yet to be onboarded by IT services companies.
The placement head of a popular college in South India said around 5% offers were yet to be converted into employment for the 2022 batch.
“The freshers are still facing onboarding delays. These problems are mainly seen in Wipro and Capgemini,” said Harpreet Saluja, president at IT union Nascent IT Employees Senate. “Our Telegram groups have a few thousand members, and we estimate a similar number of candidates are awaiting onboarding in these two companies.”
AR Ramesh, director - managed services & professional staffing at Adecco India, said given the delays in onboarding by many IT companies, it was likely that a significant number of freshers (2021 and 2022 batches) were still waiting to be onboarded.
Some of the onboarding of the last batch of freshers (2022 batch) may spill over to later this year (2023).
In a statement, Wipro, India’s fourth largest software exporter, said it would honour all offer letters that had been made to deserving candidates.
Capgemini, in its response to ET’s queries, said: “Our onboarding process is aligned with client requirements and staggered over a period of time to factor in project schedules while also providing new joinees access to the right training.”
Mphasis said that it plans to induct candidates in a phased manner, while another IT company, LTIMindtree, declined to comment.
The efforts to push the authorities to act are also futile as there are no provisions in labour laws to enforce companies to honour their offer letters, employee unions said. The employment contract comes into place only after a person joins a company.
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