India’s top IT services firms Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and Infosys reported a sharp decline of over 11,000 employees in the October-December 2022 quarter even as attrition rates dropped.
In Q3, TCS saw its total headcount shrink by 5,680 while Infosys headcount fell by 6,101. Infosys ended with 322,663 employees, posting employee reduction for fourth straight quarter.
Less Employees Working With TCS, Infosys
Combined employee count at TCS and Infosys plunged by 34,851 year-on-year. TCS workforce stood at 603,305 at end of December 2022 quarter.
The attrition rate eased to 12.9% for Infosys versus 14.6% last quarter. Similarly TCS recorded 13.3% attrition against 14.9% earlier.
Infosys said it has no campus hiring requirement for current fiscal year 2023-24. In contrast, TCS announced plans to recruit 40,000 fresh graduates from campuses in 2023-24.
The sharp employee reductions have raised concerns for IT sector and engineering graduates as top players like TCS and Infosys drive bulk of campus placements every year.
Attrition Reduces In IT Firms?
“Attrition is now within our comfort range. We continue hiring from campuses to grow talent. Fresh graduates are tremendously excited to join TCS,” said Milind Lakkad, Chief HR Officer, TCS.
On getting employees back to offices, Lakkad said almost 65% staff are working from TCS facilities currently. Regarding reports of forced transfers, he asserted job rotations are good for career growth.
The Indian IT sector added a modest 1.3 lakh new jobs in 2022 versus record hiring of over 5 lakh in previous year as demand outlook softened amid global slowdown worries.
Top players like TCS and Infosys aim to cut operating costs to protect margins, including reducing third-party staff and subcontractors, introduce more automation and even trim employee benefits.
This also allows them to repurpose employees with new digital skills via retraining to tap into resilient demand areas like cloud migration and analytics.
