TCS, Infosys, HCLTech: Hiring crashes across Indian IT companies in Q2 FY24 – Business Today

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Major Indian IT companies Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys, and HCLTech announced their Q2 FY24 results this week. A major trend observed across all these companies was a significant drop in headcount numbers.
TCS
The IT company saw a net decline in headcount of 6,333 employees on a quarterly basis. TCS’s net employee headcount was at 608,985 as of September 30. The company’s employee headcount was at 615,318 in the June quarter.
The IT services company witnessed a drop in headcount on a yearly basis too. Their headcount in Q2FY23 was at 616,171. The headcount in Q2FY24 was down by 7,186 employees.
Milind Lakkad, CHRO of the company, attributed this to the company’s recalibration of its hiring targets.
“Our strategy of proactively hiring bright freshers and investing in training them with the right skills is paying off. With that talent coming on stream and with reduced attrition, we were able to recalibrate our gross additions, keeping it below the departures during the quarter, driving up productivity and enhancing project outcomes,” Lakkad explained.
Infosys
Infosys reported a net fall of 7,530 employees in its headcount sequentially. 
Infosys has 3,28,764 employees on its roll as of September 2023, as per its quarterly results. The company had 3,36,294 employees in the previous quarter.
The headcount also dipped when compared to the year ago quarter. The headcount is down 16,454 YoY.
Infosys has also slowed down on hiring, and will not conduct mass recruiting drives across Indian college campuses, CFO Nilanjan Roy noted during the post results press conference. He explained that the company has a significant bench size, because of which hiring plans have been put on the back-burner.
“Company is not going to campuses as yet. Last year, we hired 50,000 freshers and hired ahead of demand, we still have a significant fresher bench,” Roy said.
HCLTech
IT company HCLTech’s net headcount addition also declined like its peers. The headcount dipped by 2,299 in Q2 FY 24. The company’s total headcount stood at 2,21,139. This is the second consecutive quarter of headcount decline at the IT major. The company’s headcount in Q1 had dropped by 2,506. 
CEO and MD C Vijayakumar explained that the headcount at the company went down since freshers on the bench or in training were ready to be put on projects.
He said, “Our employee count decreased by 1 percent on a sequential basis because we consciously didn’t backfill attrition as a lot of freshers we hired in the last 18 months are now ready to be deployed.”
Sector overview
Three major IT companies have released their results so far. Apart from financials, Q2 has been a tepid quarter when it comes to hiring as well. In the year ago quarter, TCS had hired 9,840; Infosys had hired 10,032; and HCLTech had hired 8,382 people. The combined headcount growth of these three companies stood at 28,254.
Whereas, in the September 2023 ended quarter, the net employee addition of all the three companies combined is negative and is at 16,162.
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