Moonlighting means taking up an extra job or assignment outside of regular business hours, to earn more money. It is not uncommon in the employment sector for employees to do so albeit surreptitiously but currently, it is receiving a severe backlash from the bosses.
Why do employees moonlight? The reasons can vary from meeting their financial needs to improving their skills, there could be many reasons for moonlighting.
The companies, on their part, are critical. Big IT and Tech companies such as Wipro, Infosys, TCS, and HCL have expressed disapproval at this growing trend. Last month Wipro sacked around 300 employees for indulging in dual employment, and more recently, Infosys followed suit.
Wipro Chairman, Rishad Premji even took to Twitter to criticise the practice and called it ‘cheating’. There are other reasons besides ‘ethical’ which companies cite for relieving their employees of duties.
In nutshell, from the employer’s point of view, moonlighters are not prompt and prepared for the challenges of day-to-day work.
In India, there is no law that completely prohibits moonlighting. Thus, it is the employers and their terms of employment that decide whether an employee can moonlight or not. Many companies especially in the IT sector consider it against the core values and have either terminated employees or have warned employees of termination if found out.
According to reports, hundreds of freshers were given offer letters but first the joining of those candidates were postponed and finally, their offer letter was revoked.
The news, first reported by BusinessLine, quoted emails sent by these companies to the freshers whose offer letters were rejected.
According to the reports, the students received these offer letters after several rounds of interviews and a rigorous selection process.
"It has been identified that you are not meeting our academic eligibility criteria. Hence your offer stands null and void," one of the emails read.
The companies were yet to react to the reports.
The global macroeconomic conditions, amid recession fears and rising inflation, have hit the Indian industries, and the IT/tech industry in the country is not immune.
Experts have earlier said that the momentum in the Indian IT industry would slow down further in times to come.
TCS earlier postponed variable pay to its employees while Infosys reportedly slashed it to 70 per cent and Wipro deferred it completely.
According to a latest report by Naukri.com, the IT sector recorded a de-growth of 10 per cent in hiring activity in August.
Speaking at the All India Management Association (AIMA) National Management Convention, Premji termed moonlighting is a complete violation of integrity "in its deepest form".
"The reality is that there are people today working for Wipro and working directly for one of our competitors and we have actually discovered 300 people in the last few months who are doing exactly that," the Wipro Chairman said.
The company has now terminated their employment for "act of integrity violation".
Premji recently said that the concept of a second job in addition to the regular job is "plain and simple" cheating.
"There is a lot of chatter about people moonlighting in the tech industry. This is cheating -- plain and simple," he had tweeted.
Amid the brouhaha over moonlighting in India, cloud major IBM last week made it clear that the practice is not ethical and the company does not promote such behaviour at workplace.
IBM India Managing Director, Sandip Patel, said that the company's position is exactly that of the overall industry in the country.
"All of our workers when they are employed, they sign an agreement which says that they are going to be working full-time for IBM. So moonlighting is not ethically right for them to get into," he said.
Moonlighting allows employees to work outside their primary working hours.
Some startups and unicorns like Swiggy have encouraged the practice, while most of the traditional companies are calling it cheating.
After nearly 2 years, big Indian IT companies such as TCS, Infosys, HCL and others are now following a hybrid work model and are gradually re-opening offices and calling back their employees to the workplaces.
The hybrid model will allow employees to work a few days from office and the remaining days from home depending upon work requirement and productivity.
IT major Wipro recently shared the details about its future model of working and said it plans to embrace a hybrid work culture for its employees.
Speaking on the company’s Investor Day on November 19, President & CHRO of Wipro, Saurabh Govil said that they believe that the hybrid model is the future of work. The top official also highlighted a research report which stated at least 73% of workers want flexible remote work to continue, while 67% are craving in-person time with the teams.
On the other side, 30% of the employees consider switching employers if requested to return to fully on-site work, the report said.
Govil further said that the module of work will be flexible to accommodate extended remote work for employees and special situations. He also informed that the company will adopt a one-team approach for employees working out of the premises, and team members working on the same project can come work from office on designated days of the week, and work from home for the remaining days.
Currently, senior leaders at Wipro, who are fully vaccinated against Covid-19 are leading the return to office and coming to office two days a week.
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As demand for tech professionals explodes, a record number of employees are either switching organisations or are planning to.
According to a report by UnearthInsight, a market intelligence firm, trends in resignations will continue in the second half of FY2022 in the IT sector. In its report, 'IT Industry Q2 Insights & FY22 Forecast' UnearthInsight said that the sector is expected to see attrition during the second half of the financial year at around 17-19%.
So, almost one in every five employees is likely to quit. The report predicted that the top IT firms will add as much as 4.5Lakh employees in the second half and factoring in the 17-19% attrition rate the net additions will be around 1.75 lakhs.
Point to be noted here is that the attrition rate at India’s IT firms has spiked up to 30% over the last six months.
During the July-September quarter, IT giant Cognizant Technology Solutions reported the highest attrition among its peers at 33%. Meanwhile, IT majors Infosys and Wipro’s attrition rate was as high as 20% quarter-on-quarter, while Noida-based HCL Technologies’ attrition rate stood at 15.7%.
On the other hand, the country’s largest IT firm, TCS has managed to keep the lowest attrition rate at 11.9% during the second quarter. However, it still showed an increasing trend as compared to the April-June quarter when the company had reported 8.6% attrition.
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Wipro, which employs over 221,000 people, announced that it will hire at least 25,000 fresh graduates next year. During the virtual Investor Day 2021 on November 19, Wipro's President & CHRO, Saurabh Govil said that the company will hire over 17,000 freshers in the current fiscal and at least 25,000 in the next year. G
ovil said that the software major is accelerating fresher intake across different programs to build a sustainable talent pipeline.
The top official also said that the company offers excellent learning and development opportunities for fresh engineers to chart their careers.
He also said that Wipro has also updated its rewards program for freshers, which includes consistent salary increases via performance-based bonus and an increment program.
This seems to be good news for the IT job aspirants because these record numbers could very well be a sign of things to come from other IT giants like TCS, Infosys, HCL and others. Recently, TCS, Infosys, HCL announced that they will hire at least 77,000, 45,000, and 22,000 fresh graduates in this fiscal, respectively.
And if the 2022 numbers of Wipro are something to go by, then next year could be another good, if not better year for IT freshers.
While these challenges have spared no one, such dearth of talent and rising attrition is adding margin pressures to the mid-sized IT companies including Persistent Systems, L&T Infotech, Mindtree, and others. While big IT majors are rewarding employees with salary hikes, promotions to beat the talent crunch, mid-sized IT firms have been forced to change their hiring strategy.
We had earlier reported how these companies are adopting a hire-train-deploy model to bring freshers on board. Companies are also focussing on non-engineering graduates and traditional engineers and to fill the gap. These companies are hiring engineering freshers and also non-technical people and training them to increase their talent pool.
Pune-based IT firm Persistent Systems is tapping into traditional engineering talent. Sandip Kalra, CEO of Persistent Systems, said that they are searching for engineers and talent from other industries and are working on a strategy to skill and deploy them. Similarly, in order to meet the demand for specific skills, L&T Infotech has plans to hire non-technical people and train them.
In a step in this regard, Mindtree has announced the Edge Program, in which BSc and BCA graduates can earn a Master’s Degree in software engineering from BITS Pilani.
Top Indian IT majors - Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Infosys, Wipro, HCL Technology and many others are embracing a hybrid work model in which one will work from office 2-3 days a week and rest days from home or remote locations.
Meanwhile, India's sixth-largest IT services company, Larsen & Toubro Infotech Limited (‘LTI’) has also called back its leadership team to the offices.
Last month, during the second-quarter earnings announcement, CEO & MD of L&T Infotech, Sanjay Jalona informed that they have planned a gradual and calibrated approach towards a hybrid model of return to office.
The top official further informed that they are adopting a unique framework called 'Yin Yang' Model to govern the way forward for a hybrid future.
According to L&T CEO, the company's ‘future of work’ model is the 'Yin Yang' model, which will embrace the duality of operating from office and home effectively. This model focuses on ensuring seamless project governance, consistent productivity, and better employee engagement, he informed.
The top official also said that employees are appreciating the flexibility, and many are excited to meet their colleagues for the first time or meet their teams after a long time.
L&T is expected to roll out this Yin Yang work model by the end of this year.
The IT behemoth has taken the decision as the daily Covid-19 cases are slowly declining in the country. However, reports suggest that the IT behemoth will bring its employees back to offices in a phased and flexible manner, depending on the requirements of each team. Earlier, the IT giant said that it would ask employees to return to the deputed branches at least initially, before implementing its ambitious 25/25 model.
Under the 25/25 model, only 25 percent of the workforce will be required to work in offices, the rest will be allowed to work from home. Earlier in October, TCS executive vice president and global head of human resources, Milind Lakkad said that the company will call back its employees to their office desks as about 70% of the staff and their families have been fully vaccinated and around 95% have received at least the first dose of Covid-19 vaccine.
Speaking about the same, TCS COO NG Subramaniam said in October that the company is now planning to get at least 80-85% of its employees back to the office. Hinging at which category of employees will be asked to return initially; the top official had said that the company will encourage employees at senior level and those fully vaccinated to come to campuses.
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And, to cope with the attrition, many big IT companies like TCS, Infosys, Wipro, and others have nearly doubled their hiring activities. But it seems it’s not enough to bridge the gap, which is why companies are revising their hiring targets upwards.
India's third-largest IT firm Wipro, which reported over 20 percent attrition, had previously estimated to hire 12,000 freshers. But the Bangalore-based IT firm has revised its estimates and is now planning to hire announced nearly 17000 fresh graduates from the campuses.
According to Wipro’s Chief Financial Officer, Jatin Dalal, the IT giant had hired a record number of 8,100 freshers in the June-September quarter and the company will add more 25,000 people to the total workforce in the next financial year.
Highlighting the same, Saurabh Govil, Global HR Head at Wipro said that the IT firm will hire 30,000 freshers from the campus for the next financial year 2022-23.
In a bid to address the rising attrition rate, India's largest software exporter, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) is planning to sign up almost 78,000 freshers this year, instead of the 40,000 planned initially.
On the other side, another Indian tech giant, Infosys is aiming to hire 45,000 college graduates from the campuses this fiscal.
With demand so high, job-seekers are apparently negotiating simultaneously with three to four companies on average, for better offers.
So to tackle this situation and ensure availability of required manpower to serve client demands, IT recruiters are trying desperately to get their hands on talent. As per reports, IT companies are shortlisting at least five candidates to fill up a single vacant position.
Referring a business daily, a national media (Times now) reported that IT companies and recruiters are now keeping a shortlist of at least five candidates for one job role while hiring.
The report cited the CEO of a hiring consultancy firm saying that tech hiring has become a headache for clients and consultants. Top official were quoted saying that they are looking at having five to six back-up candidates for each vacant post, but still, there is no certainty in success.
The attrition rate in India's top IT companies touched almost 21% in the September quarter. During the September quarter, IT major Wipro reported attrition of 20.5%, followed by Infosys at 20.1% and TCS at 11.9%.
The major point here is that attrition remains elevated despite massive salary hikes, promotions, quarterly bonuses, employee-engagement initiatives like reskilling and upskilling.
Big IT companies in India such as TCS, Infosys, Wipro, and others have already announced a gradual withdrawal of work from home strategy. They are planning to embrace a hybrid work strategy in which employees can work a few days from office and a few days remotely.
According to the latest survey by JLL India, nearly 79% of employees want to work from home at least once a week by opting for the hybrid model. The survey showed that the employees feel that post-pandemic, the ideal working week seems to be one involving three days of remote work and two days from office.
However, there is a marked decline in remote-work expectations. As per the survey, on average, employees now want to work from home 1.8 days a week as compared to 2.3 days 6 months ago. The survey revealed that employees aspire for balanced working patterns, with office remaining a key part of the work regime.
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And New Jersey-based IT firm Cognizant Technology Solutions has been the worst hit. The software services exporter, which employs over 3 lakh people globally, witnessed the highest attrition rate in the industry. On a trailing 12-month basis, Cognizant clocked an attrition rate of 33% during the September quarter this year.
To put this into context, India's largest software exporter, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) recorded the lowest attrition rate of 11.9% in quarter, while Infosys recorded 20.1%, Wipro 20.5%, and HCL Technologies saw the number at 15.7%.
And to deal with this attrition problem, Cognizant is now focusing on retention and recruitment, said CEO Brian J. Humphries during the Q3 Earnings Call announcement.
Despite elevated attrition, Cognizant increased its net headcount in Q3 by over 17,000 sequentially. The company is also planning to hire as many as 45,000 new graduates in India by 2022.
On the other side, Cognizant is also planning to hire approximately one lakh lateral employees during the current fiscal year.
The Cognizant CEO also said that the IT firm is committed to supporting employees' career growth and engagement through a range of initiatives, and annual increments in the fourth quarter.
Recently, a survey conducted by the IT industry apex body, NASSCOM stated that both employees and employers are equally interested in making a comeback to the workplace. However, the comeback to office will preferably be on a hybrid schedule involving both work from home and office.
The report titled ‘NASSCOM Return to Workplace Survey’ showed that almost 50% of the workforce in India might return to offices for up to three days a week starting next year.
However, the report mentioned that employees under the age of 25 are most interested in returning to the workplace followed by above-40 age groups. Beside that, female techies are equally interested in returning to the workplace and adapting to new working models.
The survey findings showed that about 72% of organizations are looking at up to 50% of their workforce returning to office starting next year itself.
Meanwhile, it is to be noted that IT companies such as TCS, Infosys, Wipro, and others already have started calling back their senior associates to the office desks at least twice a week.
Speaking on the matter, Nasscom President, Debjani Ghosh said that the industry is now looking at perfecting a hybrid operating model which brings in the best of both onsite and remote operating models.
The Naukri JobSpeak index which measures hiring activity showed a growth of 43% in October 2021 and rose to 2,523 points as compared to 1,759 points in October 2020. The Naukri report stated that the IT sector continues to be a net hirer of skilled talent.
The sector witnessed significant annual growth of 85% in October this year, led by an increasing demand for tech professionals. India's big three IT majors TCS, Infosys, and Wipro have already revealed plans to hire over 1 lakh people this financial year.
Besides that, hiring activity has also picked up in Telecom sector which rose by 84% and the retail sector by 51%. IT hubs such as Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Pune, and others have recorded the highest year-on-year growth in the month of October this year, the Naukri report showed.
IT giants in India such as TCS, Infosys, Wipro, and others have come up with a hybrid working strategy in which one can work a few days from office and a few days from home. But it seems, a Hybrid workplace model is on top of the mind of employees as more people aspire to come back to the office!
According to the Workers Preference Barometer survey conducted by JLL India, employees seeking more balance in working patterns with many preferring the hybrid work model.
What is interesting is the fact that among the surveyed employees, office is a key part of the work regime.
As per the survey, at least 41% of employees are craving for 'real' human interactions with colleagues, while 79% of employees want to work from home once a week.
The survey also revealed that at least 91% of the surveyed employees want flexible working hours whereas almost 75% of employees want to work from office at least once a week.
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Amid this trend, freshers are the most sought after by IT giants who want to shore up their talent pool foreseeing high demand.
Country’s top IT firms such as Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Infosys, Wipro, and HCL Technologies have doubled their hiring targets on the back of the improving pandemic situation and spike in attrition.
If numbers are anything to go by, then the top IT companies put together are planning to hire over 1 lakh freshers this year.
The top four IT firms have already laid out their plans and here is what they have said so far.
After almost one and a half years of remote work, several IT companies including Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Infosys, Wipro, and others are gearing up to call back employees to the offices.
But, the second most-valuable internet company, Paytm said that it will not force people to come to the office.
Speaking to the media (moneycontrol) ahead of its big-ticket Initial Public Offering (IPO), founder and chief executive officer of Paytm, Vijay Shekhar Sharma said that the internet company will continue to allow employees to work from home.
Paytm has switched to a world where working from home or remote working is a new norm and they will be 100% flexible forever for good, the Paytm founder said.
This comes on the back of an ongoing reversal in remote work strategy at IT behemoths. TCS for instance wants to get a majority of its employees who are fully vaccinated back to the office by December this year.
On the other side, senior leaders at Wipro already have started coming to the office twice a week, while IT major Infosys is planning to call back its 20-30% staff to offices over the next six months.
Besides, Noida-based IT services firm HCL Technologies, which employs about 1.87 lakh people, has made its highest ever net addition by adding 11,135 employees in the quarter ending September 2021. And what is even more impressive is the fact that the company expects to hit similar numbers in the coming quarters.
During the result announcement of the second quarter, Chief Human Resources Officer of HCL, VV Apparao said that the company has stepped up the hiring activity and it will continue to hire laterals and freshers.
The top official informed that the IT major added at least 5,800 freshers in the second quarter of the financial year 2022 and it will hire more 10,000-12,000 fresh graduates in the next two quarters.
The Chief Human Resources Officer also informed that the attrition rate at HCL has increased to 15.7% from 11.8% in the last quarter and the company is taking several measures to address the issue.
At the time when the participation of women in the Indian workforce has gone down to almost 16%, big IT firms such as Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Infosys, Wipro and HCL Technologies are apparently planning to hire over 60,000 women techies from the campuses this year.
Recently, the Noida-headquartered IT firm, HCL Technologies announced that as much as 60% of new employees hired from campuses this year would be women. As per reports, HCL is gearing up to hire 22,000 candidates for entry-level roles this fiscal.
Meanwhile, the largest software exporter in India, TCS, which currently employs 1.85 lakh female employees, is planning to hire 15,000-18,000 more women employees for entry-level roles.
On the other side, IT majors Wipro and Infosys are planning to hire about 50% of women candidates in entry-level recruitments this fiscal.
IT giant Wipro is likely to hire 30,000 female candidates via campus placement this year while Infosys has plans to have a 45% female workforce in its total workforce by 2030.
According to the industry body Nasscom, currently, the gender ratio of the Indian IT sector stands at 33%.
Speaking on the same, Senior Vice President of Nasscom said that as the demand for digital talent explodes, the corporate sector is further looking at enhancing women's participation in the workforce.
As the demand for technology professionals explodes, many Indian IT companies are witnessing a surge in attrition rates. And, to deal with this, companies have started hiring freshers in record numbers.
India's big four IT firms- Tata Consulting Services (TCS), Infosys, Wipro, and HCL Technologies have highlighted increasing employee attrition rates in their latest completed quarters.
Bangalore-based IT exporter, Wipro had the highest attrition rate at 20.5%, followed by the second largest IT firm in India, Infosys at 20.1%. On the other side, HCL Technologies reported its all-time high attrition rate of 15.7%, while India's largest software exporter TCS reported 11.9% attrition rate, which was the lowest among the big four.
TCS, in its latest quarterly results reported that as many as 43,000 fresh graduates have joined TCS in the first half of this fiscal. The IT giant is also expected to hire at least 35,000 freshers in the second half of the financial year 2022. Infosys, Wipro and HCL have also increased their fresher intake and revised their campus hiring targets significantly.
Apart from high demand and attrition, it is also believed that the increased activity in the Indian startup scene is also creating an IT talent crunch. Many startups are reportedly luring IT professionals on to their payrolls, which is also adding to the demand supply gap.
These companies are embracing a hybrid model where one can work a few days from home and few days from office. It is also to be noted that under work from home, the employees have been allowed to do remote work or work from anywhere.
But, the liberty to 'work from anywhere' may not be there on a permanent basis! Employees reportedly need to be back in the location they were hired for.
Quoting a survey conducted by Deloitte, national media (Economic Times) reported that only 12% of companies are planning to give the choice to employees to work from anywhere on a permanent basis. Covering 450-plus organisations, the Deloitte survey revealed that barring the IT and ITeS sectors, companies belonging to most other sectors are not willing to approve the liberty of working from anywhere.
Meanwhile, the national media stated that companies across sectors want to get their employees back to the same city where they are posted or hired for or the base location. This is being done to foster collaboration among teams. Considering the issues like hardware infra, data privacy, better productivity, and employee bonding, companies want employees to return to base locations.
Though IT companies like TCS, Infosys and Wipro among others have allowed the flexibility to work from anywhere, TCS has already asked employees to return to base location.
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Most of the companies are aiming for a slow reversal in work from home and transition towards a home & office hybrid model. Let's know what the IT majors are planning to get back their staff to the offices.
Big IT firms such as Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Infosys, Wipro, and other corporations are now preparing to embrace the hybrid work model, in which employees can work a few days from the office and few days from home.
Last month, the third-largest tech company in India, Wipro, called its senior leaders to the offices twice a week.
During the second-quarter earnings call on October 13, Saurabh Govil, president and chief human resources officer at Wipro said that the senior employees are very keen to come to the office and the company is going to further accelerate this transition in the coming quarter.
From January 2022 onwards, the pandemic situation may improve further and the company will gradually increase the presence of people on office premises, the top official said.
According to Govil, this will strengthen the engagement and teamwork as more people will be back in the offices. He further said that the company is making sure that people who are coming to the offices are the only people who were doubly vaccinated against COVID-19.
On the back of the improving pandemic situation and spike in attrition, these big IT companies have doubled their hiring targets for 2021-22, as per a report by national media (moneycontrol). These companies had reportedly hired some 82,000 fresh graduates during 2021 fiscal and also added over 50,000 employees in the quarter ending September this year.
India's largest software exporter, TCS has already on-boarded 43,000 freshers. The company has reportedly increased its intake target from 40,000 to 78,000 for this year. While Infosys has revised its fresher hiring target to 17,000, HCL Tech is targeting to hire 22,000 from campuses and it has already made a record 11,135 hiring so far.
Chief Human Resources Officer of Wipro, Saurabh Govil said that the company has made over 10,000 net headcount additions in the second quarter. The company said that due to the higher attrition environment, it will further increase the hiring rate by threefold in the next two years.
Top IT majors such as Infosys, Wipro, and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) have also recorded a higher attrition rate this year. As per the September quarter data, the attrition rate at the second-largest IT firm in India, Infosys stands at 20.1%, while for Wipro it is 20.5% and TCS is 11.9%.
During the second-quarter earnings press brief on October 13, the IT major informed that the attrition has increased on the back of high industry growth and supply squeeze.
To contain attrition the IT company has undertaken several initiatives, the Chief Operating Officer of Infosys, Pravin Rao informed. Rao informed that the IT firm has dramatically increased the number of promotions, and also given a couple of salary hikes this year. While one salary hike was effective from January, the other one was effective from July.
The top company official also informed that the company working on multiple things to contain the attrition, through focusing on employee engagement, career aspects, talent re-skilling, etc.
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In recent times, most tech companies have been recording high attrition rate of around 15%. IT companies like Mastek, and Cyient apparently recorded a high attrition rate during the first quarter of 2022. But, the attrition rate, however, is relatively low for India's largest IT firm Tata Consultancy Services (TCS).
However, there could be some relief in sight for these companies. Citing a report by brokerage firm Anand Rathi, a national portal (livemint) reported that attrition in IT companies is expected to slow down from the fourth quarter (Q4).
According to the report, the attrition rate will slow as companies have boosted their hiring process and some companies have front-loaded hiring.
The report further said that many big companies have been recording strong revenue growth, which is helping them to increase the workforce significantly.
However, the record high headcount and net additions are putting pressure on supply, the report added.
Now, as over 70% of TCS staff are fully vaccinated and more than 95% have got at least one shot, India's biggest IT service provider Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), is also planning to return to the office in a big way.
Speaking about the company’s decision during the second-quarter earnings call on October 8, TCS COO NG Subramaniam informed that the company is now planning to get at least 80-85% of its employees back to the office. Subramaniam said that the company will encourage employees at senior level and those fully vaccinated to come to campuses.
However, the top official also informed that some of the executives from the management, client services, and delivery side are already coming to work over the last few weeks. He also informed that most of its offices have been sanitized and all protocols have been put in place to welcome the employees back.
Meanwhile, after a year beset by the COVID pandemic, India Inc. got a small relief as its hiring target for the October-December quarter has reached the highest in the last 18 months, showed TeamLease Employment Outlook Report. According to a financial media (cnbc), the survey covered 650 companies across 21 sectors across the country.
The survey report showed that 41% of the surveyed companies intend to hire in this (October-December) quarter, as compared to 38% in the July-September quarter. As per reports, last year, India Inc’s intent to hire had plunged to 18% in the April-June and July- September quarters of the financial year 2021.
Speaking on the same, Executive Vice President of TeamLease Services, Rituparna Chakraborty said that there is an overarching high sense of positivity in the Indian white- and blue-collar job market. The report also said that the IT sector in India scores the highest at 69% in terms of intent to hire.
And, if one looks at the geographical breakdown, the intent to hire is strongest in Bangalore at 67%, followed by Delhi (59%), Hyderabad (53%). Already major IT companies in India like TCS, Infosys, Wipro and others have significantly increased their hiring activity which is leading a strong rebound in employment overall and in the sector as well.
However, many sectors are hiring on a large scale as more people get vaccinated, companies are taking tentative steps to bring employees back to offices, etc.
However, in good news for employees, accounting and consulting firm PwC has introduced a new policy to allow its employees to work from home for a lifetime.
Recently, in a statement, the consulting firm announced that it will allow its 40,000 US client services employees to work virtually. The company also said that these employees can work from anywhere they want permanently.
And, with this move, PwC becomes one of the biggest employers to embrace permanent work-from-home policy.
A news portal (India.com), citing international media reports, quoted PwC’s deputy people leader Yolanda Seals-Coffield saying that employees who will get permanent remote work facility would see a salary cut.
Geographic location matters, as those working from a 'lower-cost location', will see their pay decrease, he added. On similar lines, Google also offers location-based compensation packages to its employees.
Besides other major accounting firms, such as Deloitte and KPMG, have also been allowing employees to work from home. Apart from these firms, several IT companies such as TCS, Wipro, and Cognizant are offering flexible remote work choices to employees.
But, it also can't be denied that they have been quite successful in doing so. But now, after almost one and a half years, corporations across the world are apparently gearing up to bring back their employees to office desks. If reports by financial media (CNBC) are anything to go by, companies are now embracing a hybrid model.
A few months back, the CEO of Google, Sundar Pichai, informed its employees about a 'hybrid workplace'. According to Pichai, the hybrid model is a concept, where around 60% of staff would come to the office for a few days in a week, another 20% would work in new office locations, and the remaining employees would work from home.
This hybrid model has become a buzzword in corporate sectors in India as well. This model will combine work from home and office. Big IT companies such as Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and Wipro are trying this innovative hybrid model.
Marico, which is one of India’s leading FMCG companies, has also announced its plans to enforce the hybrid workplace model for all employees. Besides several Indian companies are also offering hybrid work schedule.
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According to a national media (TOI), Accenture that employs more than 2.5 lakh employees in India could cross 3 lakh headcount by this financial year.
It is also to be noted that the global tech multinational company had added over 1 lakh people in the last financial year, taking the total headcount to globally 624,268.
Meanwhile, other IT giants such as Cognizant, Capgemini and IBM have over 2 lakh, 1.5 lakh and 1 lakh employees in India, respectively.
The news report quoted CEO of talent consultancy firm Han digital saying that their estimates showed that Accenture has hired more than 70,000 people in India in 2021. He also said that hiring activity in Accenture will pick-up significantly in the coming months.
The report said that the company has listed over 30,000 jobs across various jobs roles such as cloud, data analytics and big data, and network security.
Meanwhile, like Accenture, big IT firms in India such as TCS, Infosys, and Wipro also have been started hiring fresh graduates and laterals for this fiscal. These IT firms are reportedly planning to hire over 1 lakh candidates by this financial year.
As per the All-India Quarterly Establishment-based Employment Survey conducted by the centre, between March 25th and June 30, 2020, at least 27% of establishments have had to layoff their employees,.
The survey report also highlighted that at least 19% of employees in nine non-farm sectors, did not receive full salary. On the other side, the report showed that the overall rate of employment in the country has increased by 29% over the last six years. As per the report, among the sectors that have fared well are IT/BPO, health, transport, financial services, construction, education, and manufacturing.
The IT and BPO sector saw the most impressive growth of 152%, while the Health and Education sectors recorded 77 and 39 per cent increase, respectively. Meanwhile, the report suggested that the proportion of female workers also witnessed a declining trend, as it went down from 31% to 29%. However, after facing all the Covid-induced challenges, the job market in India has started booming again.
The growth in jobs market is predominantly driven by the IT sector with big companies like TCS, Infosys, Wipro, and HCL Technologies ramping up hiring vigorously. as it went down from 31% to 29%. However, after facing all the Covid-induced challenges, the job market in India has started booming again.
The growth in jobs market is predominantly driven by the IT sector with big companies like TCS, Infosys, Wipro, and HCL Technologies ramping up hiring vigorously. as it went down from 31% to 29%.
However, after facing all the Covid-induced challenges, the job market in India has started booming again. The growth in jobs market is predominantly driven by the IT sector with big companies like TCS, Infosys, Wipro, and HCL Technologies ramping up hiring vigorously.
Video Editor: Surendra Pradhan
Producer: Diptyranjita Patra
The JobSpeak report said that hiring activity in August 2021 has surpassed pre-pandemic levels in August 2019, by 24%.
And, despite many challenges during the pandemic, IT sector grew by 79% in August this year compared to August 2019.
If we lower the time frame, then the IT-Software led hiring has seen a stupendous jump of 173% year-on-year in August 2021.
Now if one looks at the geographical breakdown, the top metro cities such as Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Pune, and Chennai witnessed almost 39% growth in hiring activity in August 2021 as compared to the pr- pandemic levels of August 2019.
According to the report, all these geographical pockets are IT hubs and the boom in hiring activity corresponds to the growth of jobs in the IT sector. This hiring growth has been driven by a significant ramp-up in hiring activity by top IT firms such as TCS, Infosys, Wipro, Cognizant and others.
The top IT companies have said that they will hire more than 1 lakh freshers from campuses in 2021-2022. Now looking at the function & experience-wise breakdown, hiring activity for senior professionals with 8-12 years of experience also saw a maximum increase of 110% in August 2021.
Elsewhere, other sectors that have now exceeded pre-pandemic levels in hiring activity are real estate, telecom, medical/healthcare, pharma/biotech, insurance, and BFSI.
After over a year-long slump in hiring activities, engineering colleges in India are witnessing almost 100% rise in demand for freshers.
High attrition and rapid pace of digital transformation are the major reasons for this huge demand for fresh talent.
Referring to a financial portal, a national media (Timesnow) reported that several companies such as Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Tata Steel, Infosys, Goldman Sachs, PwC, Byju’s are among many big companies which have ramped up their recruitment of freshers through on and off-campus routes.
Reports also suggested that IT firms such as Cognizant, HCL Technologies, Wipro have also started hiring for this fiscal. The top four IT giants such as TCS, Infosys, HCL Technologies and Wipro said that they will collectively hire over 120,000 fresh graduates across the country in the financial year 2021-22.
IT firm Cognizant is reportedly planning to welcome around 30,000 new graduates this year and it is planning to hire an additional 45,000 freshers in India by 2022. PwC reportedly will double its hiring this year while financial giant Goldman Sachs will hire 600 engineers.
Companies are also looking out for candidates who are quick to learn new-age skills where there is a dearth of talent to grow the businesses.
Speaking to the financial portal, senior vice-president, HR, at Cognizant India, Shantanu Jha said that the company is looking for new graduates with advanced programming skills who can be prepared for full stack engineers, data scientist, and cyber security specialists.
Meanwhile, a Tata Steel spokesperson said that some of the new tech recruits will be assigned roles in analytics and insights, artificial intelligence, and machine learning, etc.
As per the Monster Employment Index India report, employment scenario is improving across the board in India. Overall job postings improved by 14 per cent year-on-year in August 2021 as compared to August 2020. And a big contribution comes from the IT sector, which saw another robust year-on-year growth.
As per the report, IT- Hardware, Software (+39%) continues to drive hiring, being the topmost industry in the e-recruitment activity on a year-on-year basis. A city wise breakdown of employment generation showed further corroborates the fact that IT is driving a recovery in the job market.
The Monster Employment Index India report suggests that the city of Bangalore was top when it came to hiring activity. Bangalore, which is considered as the IT hub of the country, saw a 59% increase in hiring activity on a year-on-year basis in August 2021.
Not only Bangalore, India's other major IT hubs such as Hyderabad and Pune also saw robust hiring activity as per the index. India's top IT companies such as Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Infosys and Wipro have said that they are going to hire more than 1 lakh fresh graduates from the campuses this fiscal.
For instance, the largest IT giant TCS will hire over 40,000 freshers, while Infosys and Wipro will recruit 35,000 candidates from the campuses this fiscal.
Video Editor: Surendra Pradhan
Producer: Diptyranjita Patra
But now a lot of good news is trickling in and especially the IT job market in India is booming again. Almost after one-and-a-half-year into the pandemic, the job market is gradually experiencing high-activity along with salary growth as well. IT giants TCS, Infosys, Wipro and other big tech companies are aggressively hiring candidates across the country this year.
Reports suggest that big IT companies are now offering higher pay packages in the range of 70-120 per cent. Referring to the Indeep Report, which analysed the impact of the pandemic on India’s job market, a national news portal (thefederal.com) reported that the demand for IT professionals has risen as much as 400%.
The report noted that the demand for niche and super niche skill-centric jobs is witnessing a surge. And not just jobs offers, companies are also offering higher salary packages and even bonuses to joinees.
The report noted that full-time engineers are being offered salary hikes in between the range of 70-120% while last year, the figure was in the range of 20-30%.
(Video Editor: Surendra Pradhan, Producer: Diptiranjita Patra)
According to a report by a financial news portal (cnbctv18.com), lucrative opportunities are plenty for certain profiles. Full stack engineers, data engineers, frontend engineers, developer operations, data scientists and backend engineers are in high demand and are commanding higher salaries.
The report also said that the companies are paying higher than previous year for getting people onboard. Not only companies are willing to pay more to get new talent, but tech professionals are also expecting good salary hikes.
If the numbers mentioned in the report are something to go by, then salary hike expectations in case of full-stack engineers are in the range of 70-120 percent. A year ago, the expectation was around 20-30 percent.
If you are a front end engineer, you can expect a salary hike between 60 and 100 percent, which compares to a mediocre 30-40 percent a year ago.
It is seemingly a golden time for skilled IT engineers and if you are the one who is juggling job offers, then you can land at a really lucrative offer.
Top it with the fact that IT giants like TCS, Wipro, and Infosys are already on record-hiring spree, IT engineers are really staring at promising job prospects and outlook currently.
(Video Credits: Editor: Partha Narayan Das, Producer: Sanchita Mondal)
In March, 2020, hundreds of companies were forced to shut down their offices overnight and had to adopt work-from-home policy.
After 18 months, though there are many tech companies that have decided to continue remote work, some IT firms are reportedly planning to bring employees back to the office.
As per reports in national media (India Times), IT firms are taking this decision as Covid-19 cases are steadily declining and most employees are vaccinated. Leading IT firms such as TCS, Wipro and Apple are reportedly asking their employees to follow the hybrid style of working, where one is expected to work for 2-3 days from office and the next 2-3 days from home.
Earlier on September 13, senior leaders at Wipro returned to office after 18 months.
They will work from office, twice a week.
India's largest employer Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) is reportedly planning to call back over 80 per cent of its employees to office. However, Rajesh Gopinathan, the CEO of TCS said the decision would depend on the Covid-19 third wave.
Several other major companies such as Infosys, Apple, HCL Technologies, Nagarro, and Nasscom are reportedly planning to follow the hybrid model of work and call back employees to office.
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Writer/Producer: Sanchita Mondal
With this, the third-largest tech company in India, reportedly became the first IT firm to publicly announce the return of some of its senior employees to office.
Taking to Twitter, Wipro Chairman, Rishad Premji informed that the company's leadership would resume work from office, twice a week, starting from Monday (September 13).
The Chairman of Wipro said that all of them are fully vaccinated and ready to join office. Premji also shared a video showing how the company arranged COVID-19-related safety protocols and how well the company is ready to welcome its staff. From temperature checks to QR scans at multiple checkpoints on Wipro office campus, the company said that employee safety has been ensured.
However, in a separate statement, Wipro also informed that all other employees working from home will continue till October 31 this year.
In 2020, when the deadly coronavirus hit India, almost all the IT companies adopted the work from home concept to slow down the spread of the virus.
Though, the COVID-19 Pandemic is not over yet, the number of cases being reported in the country has gone down substantially.
And, as a large chunk of population is now vaccinated, many corporations are asking their employees to return to office.
Other big corporations such as TCS, Infosys are also reportedly planning to call back some of their employees to start working from office.
Video Editor: Partha Narayan Das
Writer/Producer: Sanchita Mondal
Wipro, one of the leading IT firms in India, will now be handing out a major salary hike to all its eligible employees! The IT services major, Wipro has announced a salary hike for 80% of its employees. As per the announcement by the company, this will be the second hike in the calendar year, and this new hike will be effective from September 1, 2021. According to Wipro, it will give merit salary increases (MSI) for eligible employees up to Band B3 (Assistant Manager and below) from September 1. Meanwhile, the IT firm informed that employees in these bands count for 80 percent of the company’s total workforce and they are eligible for salary hikes.
However, the Bengaluru-based company has already announced that all eligible employees above Band C1 (managers and above) will receive pay hikes which will be effective from June 2021. It is also reported that Wipro has classified all associates into five bands from A to E with sub rankings within each band based on their work experience. However, band B3 or juniors counts for 80 percent of its total workforce. On the other side, the IT major has plans to hire over 30,000 fresh graduates from campuses this fiscal. Meanwhile, Wipro's IT services workforce crossed the milestone of 2 lakh with a closing headcount of 2,09,890.
According to media reports (Bloomberg Quint) quoting research firm Jefferies, hiring activity has picked up pace in the IT sector in India.
Notwithstanding the pressures and disruptions during the pandemic, the sector is seeing robust activity.
The report quoted Jefferies saying that it sees “strong hiring boom” on account of the post-pandemic rush for the outsourcing of IT jobs to India. The top five IT companies - Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Infosys, HCL Technologies, Wipro, Tech Mahindra, are currently representing about 30% of the 44 lakh employed in Indian IT and BPO sector.
These top five IT companies hired at least 55,000 candidates in the first quarter of the ongoing fiscal, the report said. And, the big five could end the year with 1.3-1.5 lakh net hires, nearly 50% higher than the best year in the past 10 years, Jefferies reportedly said in its research co-authored by analysts Mahesh Nandurkar and Abhinav Sinha.
Jefferies’ analysis of employment data also showed that after a long gap tech companies are now offering sharp salary hikes. Faster job growth and salary hikes could help in urban sentiment recovery, the analysts said.
As per the report, the internet, e-commerce, and startup boom is maturing, and is absorbing significant talent.
A total of 12 Indian companies featured in the list, which saw India rise above Australia to the ninth position. The Hurun Global 500 list is led by the US (243), followed by China (47), Japan (30) and the UK (24).
Of the Indian companies, 8 are from Mumbai, 2 Bengaluru and one in each of Noida and New Delhi.
With $188 billion, Reliance Industries (RIL) is the most valuable company, followed by Tata Consultancy Services ($164 billion) and HDFC Bank ($113 billion) from India.
The positions of many Indian companies, including Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), HDFC Bank and Bharti Airtel, saw a decline compared to the last year.
Globally, Apple was ranked the most valuable company, up 15 per cent to $2.4 trillion.
The 'Big 4' -- Apple, Microsoft, Amazon and Alphabet -- doubled in value since Covid, adding $4 trillion to take their combined value to $8 trillion, and making up 14 per cent of Hurun Global 500 Most Valuable Companies.
As per reports, these companies will hire women candidates for entry-level roles with an aim to enhance gender diversity.
According to industry body Nasscom, India's IT industry has a gender ratio of 33 per cent currently. Speaking to a national business daily Economic Times, Senior Vice President of Nasscom, Sangeeta Gupta said that as demand for digital talent soars, the industry is further looking at enhancing women participation in the workforce.
This can be achieved through increased campus hiring, hybrid work models and skilling interventions, she said. HCL Technologies, which plans to hire 22,000 candidates from campuses this year, out of which 60 per cent will be women, is the most ambitious among the big IT companies.
Reports suggest that, the company is aiming at a 50:50 mix in gender diversity in the coming years. Meanwhile, India’s largest IT firm, TCS, which already has 1.85 lakh female employees, has plans to recruit more 15,000-18,000 women this year. On the other hand,
IT firms like, Wipro and Infosys are looking at hiring about 50 per cent women candidates in entry-level recruitments.
"Calendar year 2018 commentary from our clients look positive while there are some customer specific uncertainties," Wipro Chief Executive Abidali Z. Neemuchwala told reporters here.
Admitting that performance in verticals like energy, natural resources and utilities were impacted by some customer specific issues, Neemuchwala said there was a rebound in the energy business.
"In the third quarter (Q3), we made our 13th strategic investment through Wipro Ventures in Headspin, which offers a mobile experience management platform. We had 20 joint wins with these portfolio firms in Q3 and 50+ joint wins in this fiscal," the CEO recalled.
The company is working on a retail banking modernisation programme with one of the world's largest banks, using Salesforce for customer experience across touch points and utilising insights to offer personalised services, products and pricing to 40,000 bankers.
"We have about 90,000 techies trained on digital skills" added Neemuchwala.
A global fashion retailer in Europe chose the outsourcing firm for a large scale programme to transform its buying and merchandising function and deliver digital and unified front-end functionality for store operations.
"We will provide a scalable and robust business processes and systems to enable single view of inventory, assortment; pricing optimisation, accurate demand forecasting and fuel expansion plans in 11 countries across Europe and the US," asserted the Chief Executive.
Through its Horizon programme, the company funded 2 new projects in the Integrated Threat Management and Cloud Security in the third quarter.
"We are working on 14 themes, including AI (Artificial Intelligence), autonomous vehicle, cybersecurity, industry 4.0, IoT (Internet on Things)," added Neemuchwala.
The job scenario across the country worsened after the pandemic-induced lockdown was enforced last year. The job market saw unprecedented mass layoffs, salary cuts. Many companies also resorted to freeze hiring or had slowed down the process. But it seems the IT sectors are now making extraordinary progress in revival of the jobs lost during the crisis.
Reports suggest that these three top IT firms have already added over 40,000 employees to its workforce in the first quarter of this fiscal. Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), the largest employer in the private sector in India, has planned to hire more than 40,000 fresh graduates in this financial year.
Executive vice president and global head of human resources in TCS, Milind Lakkad recently informed that the IT firm hired 40,000 graduates from campuses in India in 2020 and it aims to better this figure this year. Infosys, on the other hand, had a total employee base of 2.67 lakh at the end of June quarter, as compared to 2.59 lakh in the March quarter. The IT major has reportedly said that it is going to hire around 35,000 engineering graduates from colleges across the world this year.
Similarly, Wipro has also announced that it has planned to hire over 30,000 fresh graduates for joining in the Financial Year 2023. The hiring process will soon gather pace as companies have reportedly signed record deals worth billions of dollars and many projects are in their buckets.
"Demand environment and traction in global markets continues to be strong, especially for digital transformation and enterprise scale modernisation services," Wipro Chief Executive Abidali Neemuchwala told reporters here.
Noting that the pickup in growth across industry segments continued in the US, where about 60 per cent of the IT majora¿s revenue is generated, Neemuchwala said the momentum was also better in Asia Pacific and emerging markets, which grew 7.9 per cent sequentially in the second quarter.
"We are seeing good momentum in our global business led by steady performance in the BFSI (banking, financial services and insurance) and consumer business and revival in the ENU (energy, natural resources and utilities) segment," asserted Neemuchwala on the occasion.
Unlike peers TCS, Infosys and HCL, city-based Wipro reported 14 per cent and 10 per cent annual and quarterly decline in net profit for the second quarter of this fiscal (2018-19).
Wipro's annual and quarterly revenue growth in single digit was lower than the peers for the quarter (Q2) under review, resulting in the Noida-based HCL overtaking it for the third slot after TCS and Infosys in performance.
"Other companies focus on market segments which determines their strategy. We feel confident about the path we have taken in the long-term interest of our customers. In the areas we operate, our goal is leadership," said the CEO on HCL upstaging Wipro in top line and bottom line growth.
The company is also seeing an uptick in its communications business driven by core enterprise spends and next-gen technologies like 5G.
"Though our technology business has been doing well, we expect the third quarter (October-December) to be impacted by furloughs," Neemuchwala said.
Furloughs refers to long year-end holidays due to Christmas and New Year.
"In the health vertical, we continue to see a challenge, driven by the uncertainty around ACA (Affordable Care Act) as it persists in the US," he pointed out.
The outsourcing firm also clinched its largest deal valued at $1.5 billion from the US-based Alight Solutions LLC during the quarter under review.
The net utilisation, excluding trainees was 85.5 per cent in Q2.
Digital business grew 13 per cent sequentially, contributing 31 per cent of the company's quarterly revenue. Our focus on client mining is paying off well, as evident from 3.6 per cent sequential growth by its top 10 clients.
On the company's non-operating income not benefitting from a weak rupee despite hedging against a strong dollar, company Chief Financial Officer Jatin Dalal told IANS that the bottom line (net income) was impacted by one-time settlement with an unspecified key customer.
The company's operating margin for the quarter was impacted by a loss of Rs 514 crore from the settlement with one of its unspecified key customers.
"Our earnings per share declined 7.5 per cent due to the settlement," admitted Dalal./Eom/510 words.
"We have won a 10-year engagement to provide a suite of solutions and services to the Illinois-based Alight Solutions, a leader in technology-enabled health, wealth, human resources and finance solutions," said the city-based IT major in a statement here.
Claiming the deal to be its largest win so far, the company said it would generate $1.5-1.6-billion revenues over the tenure.
"We were chosen by Alight as its long-term strategic partner in its enterprise transformation journey to bring digital experiences and offerings to employees and employers globally," said Wipro Chief Executive Abidali Z. Neemuchwala in the statement on the occasion.
The deal will enable the digital transformation of Alight's offerings across health, wealth, HR and finance solutions and enhance the employee experience of its clients by leveraging Wipro's industry-leading strengths in digital technologies, cognitive automation and data analytics.
"Our industry-leading partnership with Wipro will enhance our client experience by drawing on its leading position in automation and innovation, while allowing us to invest in health, wealth and cloud-based solutions to meet the needs of our clients," said Alight Chief Executive Chris Michalak.
The deal is also a testimony to the capabilities Wipro built through its strategic investments in digital, cloud platforms and cognitive platform.
"We will leverage this expertise to digitalise and modernise Alight's core across platforms, technologies and operations," added the company.
"Rishad Premji, the member of Board of Wipro, succeeds Raman Roy as the Chairman for 2018-19," said the National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom) in the statement.
Rishad is the son of Wipro Chairman Azim Premji.
Keshav Murugesh, the Group Chief Executive Officer of the Mumbai-based global business process management company WNS Global Services, has been appointed the new Vice Chairman for the period.
"The 12,000 sq.ft. centre has various capabilities that include building up technology, post-processing, research, characterisation and validation facilities," said the city-based IT major in a statement here.
The company, however, did not disclose the cost of this high-tech facility. The software major's 3D printing business unit, Wipro3D, has been providing services to aerospace, space, industrial, automotive, healthcare, oil and gas and heavy engineering sectors in the country.
Wipro3D was set up in 2012 here under the Wipro Infrastructure Engineering, a hydraulic cylinder manufacturing unit of the software major.
The company soon plans to take its 3D printing services across the world, said the statement, although no details were specified of its expansion plans.
"We see 3D printing as a critical component in the digital manufacturing strategy of any enterprise," said Wipro3D's Business Head Ajay Parikh in the statement.
One of the country's earliest 3D printed metal component in space was built by Wipro, he added.