IT's Top 5 headcount crosses 3 lakh

Defying all concerns over the falling dollar, weakening US economy and soaring salary levels spoiling their party, the Indian technology firms continue to grow bigger when it comes to their employee strengths.

The total headcount of the country's top five IT sector flag bearers -- Infosys, TCS, Wipro, Satyam and HCL have already grown past the 3,00,000 mark with an addition of over 20,000 employees in the first three months of 2007.

The numbers are set to grow even bigger with an estimated addition of another one-lakh people on their payrolls over the current fiscal ending in March, 2008, when Infosys, the country's second largest IT firm, is alone forecasting an addition of about 25,000 employees.

According to the information provided in their quarterly results, about 20,500 IT professionals joined the five companies in the January-March 2007 quarter, taking their combined total headcount to 3,05,297 at the end of the period.

The country's largest IT firm, Tata Consultancy Services, was the leader in terms of hiring activities as well with gross addition of over 8,600 employees in the quarter, followed by about 6,000 new recruitments at Infosys.

Infosys has already announced its plans to hire over 24,000 employees in the current fiscal. "We are looking at 24,500 gross for the year and for the quarter 6,700," Infosys Chief Operating Officer, president and joint MD Kris Gopalakrishnan said last week announcing Q4 results.

As the hiring activities are relatively weak during the first three months of the year, it is set to escalate in the forthcoming quarters, said an industry observer.

IT professionals could also look forward to some huge hiring plans by TCS, which is eyeing a number of new business contracts in domestic as well as overseas markets, he added.

Besides, Wipro, Satyam and HCL, which are estimated to have issued joining letters to between 1,500-2,500 employees to their payrolls during the March quarter, could also scale up their hiring activities.

The surge could be witnessed in the second part of the calendar year as it would coincide with the Indian companies starting work on new contracts, the market observer said.

The strong hiring binge comes amid the concerns being raised by the market experts that depreciation in the US dollar against the Indian rupee and a potential slowdown in the IT spending by the US corporates could eat into the profit margins of Indian technology firms, which have significant exposure to the American market.

However, this robust recruitment drive virtually shrugs off the concerns related to wage inflation, rupee appreciation and exchange rate movements eating into the company's profitability, as hiring plans are generally finalised after taking into consideration the future growth prospects.

Besides, all these five IT firms have reported impressive financial results for the quarter ended March 31.

The salary levels are also set to move even higher, with the sector bellwether Infosys already taking the lead by saying that it has decided to hike its salaries in the current fiscal.

"Last year we increased our fresher salary by about 12 per cent and the hike could be near this level this year as well, taking into account a six per cent inflation in the country," Infosys Director and HR Head Mohandas Pai said.

With a hike in salaries, the companies are also targeting to hit the high attrition rates, which was between 11-18 per cent during the past quarter.

The total headcount of the five companies as on March 31 was 89,419 for TCS, 72,241 for Infosys, 67,818 for Wipro, 39,552 for Satyam and 40,149 for HCL Technologies. — PTI