IT hiring nearly flat for 6-7 quarters; no Q2 recovery seen: Quess Corp

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Hiring in the IT services sector has remained stagnant over the past six to seven quarters, with no active demand likely to pick up in the second quarter either, a top official from staffing firm Quess Corp has said.

Quess Corp ED and CEO Guruprasad Srinivasan told PTI that demand for technology talents is coming from global capability centres and non-IT companies.

"At least for the last six to seven quarters. And we are also not seeing very active demand coming in, even in Q2 as well. So, IT services being a bit muted or dehiring happening, there has been no impact on Quess," he said.

He added that 73 per cent of staffing demand for the company comes from non-IT and GCCs, where demand for the technology talent pool is high.

"Skills for AI, cloud, and cybersecurity kind of profile are high in demand. On average, the wage in itself is about Rs 1.25 lakhs. It's a high margin for us. When it comes to margin, it's about 15 to 18 per cent," Srinivasan noted.

Quess Corp has posted a 4 per cent increase in consolidated profit after tax at Rs 51 crore compared to Rs 49 crore it recorded in the year-ago period, driven by growth in the professional staffing segment.

The company's general staffing and overseas business remained almost flat on a year-over-year basis, while digital platform business revenue declined by more than half.

Srinivasan said the mix of the company has improved with an increase in professional staffing, which is a high-margin segment for the company.

There have been signs of recovery in general staffing, with strong momentum in the June quarter, he added.

In the June 2025 quarter, the general staffing segment of the company reported a revenue of Rs 3,122 crore, flat year-on-year and down marginally quarter-on-quarter amid a challenging operating environment.

"June 2025 was the first month since December 2024 that we saw an uptick across headcount, new demand, open mandates and fulfillments. Overall, in the quarter, we had net adds of 2,000, where we also experienced a decline in April. However, we saw a recovery in the later part of the quarter by adding 6,500 numbers in the month of June itself," he said.

Srinivasan said that the majority of new additions this quarter came from manufacturing, followed by banking, financial, consumer retail and telecom consumer, while retail and telecom saw a marginal decline.

"Professional staffing maintained its momentum from the previous year, posting its best quarterly performance in over 15 years with revenue of Rs 244 crore. It achieved a double-digit margin of 10.2 per cent with our annualised revenue run rate approaching Rs 2,000 crore," he noted.

Srinivasan said the company's exposure to GCC is 73 per cent, driven mainly by demand from digital, high-tech, telecom, media and technology and electronics sectors.

"During the quarter, we also added 12 new contracts, each with a promising projection of headcount growth in upcoming quarters. Our open mandates are currently over 1,200 positions. I mean, positioning us well to meet our demand from the sector perspective," he said.

BFSI continues to drive the growth, followed by telecom, product and tech sectors, while pharma and retail, auto and manufacturing faced pressure due to tariff-related headwinds, he said.