Indian IT sector turns to campus placements after a year-long pause

The Indian IT sector companies are resuming campus recruitment after a year, showing signs of recovery for the industry. The companies are looking to hire skilled freshers rather than entry-level jobs

The Indian IT sector is restarting campus recruitment drives after a year-long pause, driven by signs of business recovery, the Times of India reported on Saturday. According to the report, companies such as IBM, Infosys, TCS, and LTIMindtree are seeking to add skilled and specialist resources to their workforce, offering salaries between Rs 6 to 9 lakh. Joining the placements, which began in July, these companies will not be focussing on entry-level jobs, the report added.

Business Standard, meanwhile, had reported in June that TCS plans to hire around 40,000 freshers this year. Infosys aims to recruit up to 20,000 graduates.

This would be a positive development for the job market as Infosys had hired only 11,900 campus recruits in the 2023-24 financial year (FY24). This was a sharp 76 per cent drop compared to the year before that.

Artificial intelligence among most in-demand skills

Wipro plans to hire up to 12,000 freshers. The TOI report highlighted that cloud, analytics, data, and artificial intelligence are the most in-demand areas this placement season.

In June, Business Standard had reported that fresher hiring in India's IT sector had tumbled to a two-decade low, according to a report published by HR firm Xpheno. Amid a global slowdown in demand, the sector had hired between 60,000 and 70,000 freshers in FY24, lowest in 20 years. This figure is a sharp decline compared to the pre-pandemic levels, when around 200,000 freshers were hired annually.

Experts said that one reason for the lower-than-expected hiring is that the excess recruits from 2022 and 2023 are currently being integrated into the workforce. Earlier, industry experts had predicted that the demand is expected to pick up in FY25 based on the hiring targets announced by various firms.