Amid global recession fears, IT firms may go slow on hiring in 2023: Report

The hiring rate for the IT sector is likely to grow by only 10 per cent in 2023, almost half of the 15-20 per cent rise seen this year

Hiring in the information technology (IT) sector in 2023 is likely to grow by only 10 per cent, almost half of the rise seen this year, according to a report in The Financial Express.

 
Fears of an impending global recession have forced the IT sector to go slow on hiring new employees. However, consultants in the human resources industry say that IT companies would go for replacement hiring as the attrition rate is expected to remain high.

“Attrition will continue in the range of 15-20% for IT companies. We may not see expansion hirings but we will clearly see replacement hirings," Kamal Karanth, co-founder, Xpheno, a Bengaluru-based specialist staffing firm, told FE.

Roopank Chaudhary, partner and chief commercial officer, India and South Asia at Aon, added that hiring in 2023 is expected to be for specific roles.

The report said the hiring rate for the IT sector is likely to grow by only 10 per cent next year, almost half of the 15-20 per cent rise seen in 2022.

According to Karanth, the IT sector employs a workforce of nearly six million as of 2022 and is the largest employer of human resources. This figure is likely to rise by almost 10 per cent and most of the opportunities are likely to go to freshers since IT companies have already hired experienced talent over the past two years to respond to digitisation demand during the Covid period.

Besides IT, the domestic demand-driven sectors like FMCG, manufacturing, retail, life sciences, real estate, pharmaceuticals, construction, automobiles, hospitality could see a decent growth. This is expected to result in new hirings and growth in salaries in these sectors.

“Manufacturing, real estate, infrastructure, hospitality, retail, FMCG are expected to give a higher increment than previous year by 0.5-1 per cent,” said Chaudhary.