TCS is planning to employ 30% more fresh graduates in FY21: Milind Lakkad

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) is to induct a higher number of new graduates in the coming financial year.

The information technology major said it was looking at inducting 39,000 freshers in 2020-21, about 30 per cent more than it added in the ongoing financial year. 

“We added 30,000 people (from campuses) in FY19. We have already given offer letters to fresh graduates who are selected from our TCS National Qualifier Test (TNQT). So, we are adding to our base,” said Milind Lakkad, its global head for human resources.

After five quarters in a row of a net rise in employee number, total headcount at the Mumbai-headquartered firm fell by 4,063 to 446,675 at the end of the December quarter. Attrition, the term for staff leaving, rose by 60 basis points to 12.2 per cent of the total in those three months. “We absorbed freshers early this fiscal and that’s the reason the numbers (total headcount) were down,” Lakkad said. In the first nine months of this financial year, it added 22,390 employees on a net basis. “These numbers are very much at the same level as the last financial year,” he added.

Unlike some of its peers, TCS does not give separate numbers for voluntary and involuntary attrition (the latter being removal of employees due to non-performance and like reasons). 

Lakkad said hiring of freshers wouldn’t impact the employee pyramid. “When we are adding to the base (with hiring of freshers), it is our responsibility to make people re-skilled enough with relevant skills (to fit in).” 

The headcount increased from 320,000 in 2014-15 to 424,000 by the end of 2018-19, a rise of 32.5 per cent.

Around half its workforce in America is of locals. “We have plans to hire 1,500 trainees in the US and almost 1,000 people are already on board. We have a good number of people in North America today and this is going to increase,” Lakkad said.