Tata Consultancy Services fresher hiring may touch 100,000 in FY22

IT major Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) could end FY22 with a fresher hiring of 100,000, the highest ever not just by the company in a financial year but also by any IT services player in India and multinationals.

The company has on-boarded 77,000 freshers, which is higher than the earlier target of 55,000 in FY22 and much above the 40,000 hired in FY21.

“I had said in the last quarter (Q3) that we would hire 34,000, but we ended up hiring that number that quarter itself. While I do not have the number for Q4, what I can say is our intensity of hiring will continue,” said Milind Lakkad, chief HR officer (CHRO).

TCS, in the first half of FY22 (Q1 and Q2), took on 43,000 freshers. In Q3, the company added 34,000, which takes the total to 77,000.

Analysts tracking the company said the company’s lateral hiring too would be higher than in the last few quarters.

“For Q3 our estimates suggest that TCS would have added 20,000 laterals and for Q4 the number we heard was around 30,000,” said an analyst. Even if TCS does not add over 30,000 freshers in Q4 the headcount addition for FY22 will be more than 100,000.

For the past 18 months due to the pandemic, businesses have been accelerating their shift to digital and cloud, leading to demand in digital skills like never before.

This has also led to war for talent, which in turn is taking attrition rates in companies going up and the resultant has been that companies are now rushing to hire from campuses.

According to an UnearthInsight report that came out in November, gross employee addition by Indian IT services in the second half of FY22 will be around 450,000. These are largely laterals/experienced people, but the fresher intake will also go up. The report further stated nearly 250,000 freshers had been added so far (November) in FY22 by over 30 IT services firms, both domestic and multinational, in India.

TCS, among the top players despite hiring in large numbers, has kept attrition in control, though on a sequential basis it has gone up for the company. In Q3 TCS’s attrition was at 15.3 per cent, which had gone up from the 11.9 per cent in Q2. But this is low compared to Accenture (17 per cent),

Infosys (25.5 per cent), Wipro (22.7 per cent), and HCL Tech (19.8 per cent).

“Talent Cloud allows us access of talent from any location and in the recent past has managed to get a lot of acceptance from customers and managers. This also shows that customers are ready to pay for skills rather than locations, which is definitely helping us a lot,” said Lakkad in the media briefing.

The company also stated that it preferred to invest in organic talent development and this strategy has allowed it to fill 32.3 per cent of the open positions through upskilling and reskilling. TCS promoted 110,000 employees this financial year and another 40,000 TCSers will be elevated in Q4.