Even as Indian IT services companies are bouncing back in terms of revenue growth, hiring continues to be in the slow lane.

Employee numbers have grown only marginally for IT companies with TCS and Wipro reporting net decline in employees during the third quarter.

TCS CEO K Krithivasan, attributed the changes in headcount to seasonality. He said that there is no sequential correlation to a company’s growth and hiring although there may be some correlation on a long-term basis. The company’s total headcount stands at 6,07,354 employees with a net loss of 5,370 employees since the previous quarter. Despite the quarterly numbers, the company said its campus hiring plans are going as per plans with a higher number of freshers to be hired the next financial year.

“If you look at Q1 and Q2, we added significant headcount. In Q3, we knew even beforehand there will be some seasonality. So, we had to optimize wherever we could. So, that’s one reason why the headcount went down. But overall, this is not a reflection of the demand environment,” he said.

Industry scenario

Infosys reported a total headcount of 3.23 lakh employees and an attrition rate of 13.7 per cent. During the post-quarterly results conference, Jayesh Sanghrajka, Chief Financial Officer, Infosys, said he anticipated the upwards trend to continue subject to seasonality in the sector. He added that the company will continue campus hiring as per plans, aiming to hire 15,000 freshers in FY25. Further, Infosys f plans to higher over 20,000 freshers in FY26.

HCL Tech reported higher headcount than the previous quarter at 2.32 lakh total employees, which was still lower than the 2.39 lakh total employees reported during the same quarter last year.

C. Vijayakumar, HCL Tech CEO also attributed the growth in headcount to 220,755 employees to a natural growth in demand pickup.

Wipro ended Q3 by clearing all its backlogs in terms of pending campus offers. The company said the company will continue to onboard 2,500-3,000 freshers every quarter and 10,000-12,000 freshers every fiscal. The company currently reports 2.32 lakh employees.