New Delhi: Freshly graduated engineers are likely to face a scarcity of job opportunities in the IT sector this fiscal year, as the Indian IT industry is projected to hire only 1.55 lakh new graduates compared to the usual 3 lakh, the Hindu BusinessLine reported.
The business daily sourced data from the staffing services firm Teamlease to say that fresher hiring for the financial year 2024 will hit a three-year low following two consecutive years of healthy recruitment numbers during the COVID-19 pandemic years.
In FY22, the Indian IT sector recruited 3.9 lakh new graduates, accounting for almost 26% of the outgoing engineering class of 2022. This surge in hiring was driven by the demand for executing deals related to digital transformation secured during the lockdown. However, in FY23, hiring scaled down to 2.8 lakh.
The newspaper reported that the potential recession in the US is having a direct impact on the IT industry. With existing projects stalled, and without any new projects, the Indian IT sector does not have the same need to recruit new engineers at the previous rates.
IT firms are now discussing terms such as “utilisation of existing bench strength” and “upskilling” in their financial commentary, said the report. This points towards the depleted recruitment numbers.
Although IT leaders believe that the upcoming AI transformation will not adversely affect newly hired engineers, the data seems to suggest otherwise, the report noted. This year, the top five IT firms are estimated to recruit less than 10% of the graduating class – which is nearly half of the number of new engineers that this sector recruits normally.
Renowned companies such as TCS, Infosys, and Wipro, which have been popular choices among outgoing engineering graduates for their reliable job opportunities, are now signaling a less favourable job market for engineers this year. TCS has already postponed onboarding new recruits by three months.