Infosys to recruit less people this fiscal

In a clear sign of slowdown in the IT sector, Infosys Technologies on Tuesday said it planned to hire about 25,000 people in the current fiscal, nearly 29 per cent less than the total recruitments done last financial year. The IT giant had recruited 35,000 people in 2007-08.

Addressing a press conference here, Infosys Senior Vice-President, and Group Head of Human Resources, Nandita Gurjar, said the company was planning to hire 25,000 people in the current fiscal out of which 18,000 would be hired through campus recruitment.

Ms. Gurjar said the company had not made any changes in hiring plans due to global slowdown. However, she said that the impact on hiring could be visible in the last two quarters of the current fiscal. “The third and fourth quarters would be the time when the firm tends to tighten up its hiring,” she added.

Noting that the company would have liked more people to come in, Ms. Gurjar said the reason for lower numbers was not just due to economic slowdown but many other factors, including infrastructure and business plans. According to statistics provided by the firm, it had 3,372 trainees for the quarter ended June 30, 2008, whereas the same stood at 5,070 in the corresponding period a year ago. On attrition rates, she said levels had come down in recent times and was hovering at little over 13 per cent. As on the first quarter of this fiscal, the attrition was 13.6 per cent, marginally lower than 13.7 per cent in the year-ago period. Infosys, in a first of its kind initiative, would be introducing promotion for its employees twice-a-year. “The new policy would not add to our wage pressures as the process has already been factored into our HR structure,” she added.



In an effort to address the shortage of skilled workforce, Infosys is looking to form a consortium along with other top five Indian IT hirers to nurture talent in engineering colleges. “We are in discussions with other players and look forward to create a consortium with top five hirers...and also hope to get things rolling by the end of this year,” Ms. Nandita Gurjar said. However, investment details for the planned consortium were not disclosed.