IT firms give campus hiring a miss for FY25 amid macro uncertainties

They may consider visiting campuses only after March qtr

Campus hiring has turned very feeble as Indian information-technology (IT) services companies battle macro uncertainties.

While the number hired in FY24 is at an all-time low, IT majors are not hitting the campus to give job offers for FY25 either. Experts say many are giving the ongoing placement season at tech universities a miss and may look at visiting campuses only after the January-March quarter.

One of the reasons cited by HR experts and placement heads is that the 2023 batch is still available for placement. Similarly, the 2024 batch would also be available in large numbers.

Take the case of Infosys and Wipro. Wipro has said that it will honour existing campus offers and most likely will not go for new campus hiring this year. Infosys has said since it hired in large numbers in FY23, it plans to avoid the campus this year and monitor the situation every quarter.

Colleges Business Standard spoke to said while some Indian IT services firms had said they would come to campus, none had said when. The upshot of that is students graduating in 2025 will have more options than those coming out of college in 2024.

The only company that has decided on a mandate on hiring is Accenture. Sources from campuses said Accenture had the mandate to hire 18,000.

“What is working in favour of Accenture is that it was slow on campus hiring from early 2022. Now it wants to pick up. Others are in a wait-and-watch position,” said a source in the know.

Hiring happens in three parts: First by premier tech firms and then by non-tech companies. And then comes the large hiring done by Indian IT services majors. 

Hiring by premier companies in FY24 is in the range 5,000-10,000.

“We see some kind of a dip in numbers in the premier hiring segment too. Though hiring is happening, compared to what would happen in a good year, at present the dip is 15-20 per cent in this category. If one considers 2018 and 2019 as the benchmark years, and then looks at the current year, I would say IT services are down by 30-40 per cent at this point of time,” said S Pasupathi, chief operating officer, HirePro.

He concurs large IT services hiring has been impacted the most.

“Barring one or two large services companies, others probably have still not hit the campus fully,” he said. 

Take Tata Consultancy Services (TCS). The largest IT services firm is the only one that has said it will hire -- 40,000 -- from campuses for FY24. The company acknowledged there might be delays in taking on freshers who have been given offer letters. While the company said it was visiting campuses, placement heads of several engineering institutes said it was yet to give a fixed date to visit.

Pasupathi said the campus placement season this year had seen delays of 15-20 days. Typically, campus recruitment starts at the end of July, but this time it began on August 15.

Placement officers are worried that this will impact students graduating in 2024.

“We will manage 70-80 per cent of the placements this year. Typically we achieve 90 per cent. But this year IT services players are not on campus. Only Accenture, DXC Technologies, and a few others came. We are also doing well because we always had a focus on global capability centres and other non-tech companies as well,” said a senior placement head of a reputed university in South India.

An email to Accenture did not get a response.

The uncertainty of hitting the campus, even when companies are sitting on some of their largest deal wins, is a surprise for HR experts. Many say several companies did hire in large numbers in FY22 and FY23 and hence have large benches.

Shantanu Rooj, founder and chief executive officer, TeamLease Edtech, says hiring sentiment is weaker than what it should be. And most firms are not looking at boosting the numbers.

“Most estimates we have, based on our internal reports, say there will be a dip of almost 80 per cent in hiring from the IT sector.”

Rooj does not see a turnaround in the next three quarters.

“Possibly we will see some change in the second quarter of next financial year. Macro conditions in the Western world are still under pressure and people are postponing decisions,” he added.

Pasupathi says many may go for off-campus or just-in-time hiring but only after the January-March quarter.