Cognizant to hire over 23,000 students in 2020

IT firm Cognizant on Thursday said it plans to hire more than 23,000 STEM graduates and post-graduates from technical institutions in India in 2020.

This comes at a time when the US-based company -- which has about two lakh employees in India -- had recently said it will slash about 7,000 jobs across various locations.

"To further support the needs of our fast-growing digital business, in calendar 2020, Cognizant plans to hire more than 23,000 STEM graduates and post-graduates from technical institutions in India, which is 30 per cent more than the hiring we did last year," Cognizant India Chairman and MD Ramkumar Ramamoorthy said at 'CII Connect 2019' event in Chennai.

He added that the company has already made about 15,000 offers in more than 80 engineering institutes across the country.

"Cognizant is one of the biggest beneficiaries of STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) talent from India and with digital permeating every function in every industry, the need for talent with digital competencies is only increasing," Ramamoorthy said.

He added that in the past five calendar years ending 2018, Cognizant has seen net headcount addition of 66,000 to its India workforce.

"To recognize the new-age competencies and skills that these students bring in, Cognizant has increased the compensation for these students by 18 per cent to Rs 4 lakh per annum at the entry level," he added.

Last week, Cognizant had said it will remove about 10,000-12,000 mid-to-senior level associates worldwide from their current roles in coming quarters. This is expected to lead to a net reduction of approximately 5,000 to 7,000 roles (about 2 per cent of its total headcount) and re-skilling and redeployment of about 5,000 of the total associates impacted.

Besides, it had announced that it will also exit the content operation business -- a move that would impact an additional 6,000 roles. Cognizant's total headcount stood at 2,89,900 at the end of September 2019 quarter.