Indian IT Services Sector To Have ~450,000 Gross Employee Addition: UnearthInsight

As pandemic restrictions are almost lifted and workplaces are opening, the Indian IT industry is putting a fresh push on the paddle on hiring again. UnearthInsight, a metrics benchmarking and market intelligence firm, today unveiled its report on “IT Industry Q2 Insights & FY22 Forecast” an interesting set of analysis on hiring, attrition, and technology evolution of India’s IT Industry. The report estimates Gross employee addition of ~ 450,000 in the IT Services sector in H2FY22. With higher attrition in H2 of around 17 to 19%, the industry is expected to have a net employee addition of ~175,000 in H2FY22.

Commenting on the Insights, Mr. Gaurav Vasu, Founder and CEO UnearthInsight said “Our H2FY22 report unveils insightful findings, and it further brings out the fact that the IT Industry’s perceived “War on Talent” is real and it’s getting intense with attrition is a rising concern for the industry. It’s crucial for the industry to focus on Employee Value Proposition (EVP) even more aggressively to keep attrition in check. Also, one of the highlights of H1 is the way top IT firms have delivered Upskilling programs in completely digital format and have developed robust infrastructure to support such initiatives. On the hiring side, the industry is expected to see a sharp momentum with addition of around 12% more employees than H1 in the second half of the year.”  

Key Hiring trends

UnearthInsight expects ~450,000 gross employee addition in the IT services sector in H2FY22, largely laterals/experienced however fresher is a large portion compared to last year.

Nearly 2,50,000 freshers to be added so far in FY22 by 30+ IT Services firms, both domestic and multinational firms in India. In fresher hiring in FY22, the top 5 companies are expected to be 

·                     77,000 freshers for TCS (43,000 hired in 1HFY21 + 34,000 in 2HFY22)

·                     45000 freshers for Cognizant (revised earlier target of 38000)

·                     45,000 freshers for Infosys (Revised earlier target of 35,000)

·                     15,000 freshers for Tech Mahindra

·                     22,000 freshers for HCL (30,000 for FY23)

Indian technology firms are majorly focusing on upskilling programs both in India and global markets. TCS leverages multiple learning tools on iON learning platform and initiatives for reskilling its global workforce. 90% of Infosys employees learn through LEX, a platform that helps them reskill and upskill to meet the evolving requirements of the organizations. The Top 2 Indian IT players offer integrated learning platforms for different personas of employees. Other Tier I and Tier II firms like Wipro, HCL, Tech Mahindra, Mindtree, Mphasis are working towards to create a single interface for employees for learning, upskilling, reskilling and deployment.

Key Attrition trends

UnearthInsight expects that H2FY22 attrition is expected to trend higher at 17% to 19% LTM while FY23 likely to be around at 16% to 18% and the fresher addition across the next 2 quarters is likely to help IT Services firms control overall attrition in the industry.

The rise in Industry attrition is largely driven by the supply-side challenges which are transient and are expected to normalize from FY23.

In H2FY22, the industry expected to have an increase attrition of 17% to 19% and the rising trend is likely to remain the same for the next two quarters, while FY23 is expected to close at 16% to 18%.

Outlook on Technology Adoption: Increasing Cloud competition among tech giants

Unearthinsight estimates $80 billion to $100 billion in Cloud services revenue for IT services industry by 2030. Cloud itself is coming up with newer tools, newer opportunities, newer ways of connecting, newer methods of building algorithms.

•                     Accenture recorded very strong double-digit growth in Cloud Industry X and Security. Interactive improved and grew in high double digits as companies continued to shift to digital channels.

•                     Capgemini's Digital and Cloud services primarily underpinned performance, accounting for around two thirds of activity and recording strong double-digit year-on-year growth at constant exchange rates in H1.

•                     Infosys aggressively realigned strategic focus to scale digital transformation projects over the last two years, with significant investments in sales, increased large deal participation, and increased flexibility on deal structure, resulting in a sharp increase in large transformation deals around DX projects, hybrid cloud adoption, and automation.

•                     HCL expects to hire 10,000 people to its AWS practice called Amazon Web Services (AWS) Business Unit.

•                     Wipro launched Full Stride Cloud Services which integrates their consulting and technology capabilities along with Cloud Studio-based assets.

•                     Tech Mahindra's management foresee high adoption of cloud as one of its pillars of growth and continues to focus on providing holistic cloud strategy to drive the overall customer experience journey and accelerate cloud adoption across public, private and hybrid environments. UnearthInsight believes it should also focus on extending its partnership with cloud practices of global players like Amazon, Google and few niche players.