Trouble for new engineering graduates as IT hiring to hit 3-yr low in FY24

The fear of a recession in the US has emerged as a major hurdle for the IT sector. There is also a dearth of new projects which may impact the recruitment of new engineers

Fresh engineering graduates may find fewer jobs this financial year as the Indian IT sector is likely to hire only 155,000 new graduates this year against 300,000 in a good year, The Hindu Business Line (HBL) has reported.

After two years of healthy recruitment numbers during the pandemic years, fresher hiring is expected to be the lowest in the financial year 2023-24 (FY24) according to the report that cited data from staffing services firm Teamlease.

FY22 was particularly exciting for the IT firm's hirings when 390,000 fresh graduates were hired by the IT industry which was around 26 per cent of the total engineering class of 2022. The hirings were undertaken to execute the deals in digital transformation. However, the recruitments cooled down to 280,000 in FY23, the report said.

The fear of a recession in the United States has emerged as a major hurdle in the execution of existing projects. There is also a dearth of new projects and this has resulted in a dip in the recruitment of new engineers, the report stated.

The financial results for the first quarter of the ongoing fiscal are out and paint a similar picture which points towards dwindling recruitment numbers. IT firms are increasingly using terms like "utilisation of existing bench strength" and "upskilling" as part of their financial outlook commentary.

While senior officials in the IT industry have said that the advent of artificial technology will have little to no impact on the jobs of newly recruited engineers, the numbers tell a different story. The top five IT firms are expected to hire less than 10 per cent of the graduating class. While 10 per cent may seem like a big number but it is half what these companies used to hire in the past, the HBL report added.

Companies like TCS, Infosys, and Wipro are known to provide reliable and decent-paying jobs to a large section of engineering pass-outs every year. However, the projections are different for these companies this year.