Infosys will not be visiting college campuses this year to hire freshers as the second largest Indian IT services company still has a “significant fresher bench” amid a demand decline in key markets such as the US.
In the post-result press conference on Thursday, CEO and MD Salil Parekh said the company is carrying inefficiencies in its employee pyramid and has enough room to tighten utilisation to 84-85 per cent.
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Pointing to a significant fresher bench that is being trained on Gen AI, CFO Nilanjan Roy said the company is not looking to make fresh campus hires yet.
“As we see it, it is not likely that we will go to campuses for hiring this year. But will have to watch the situation every quarter,” he added.
The IT services industry typically absorbs 20-25 per cent of the 1.5 million engineering graduates in India every year. But firms are now planning to cut back on hiring freshers due to a weak deal pipeline amid lingering recessionary fears in the US.
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Announcing a lukewarm result on Thursday evening, Infosys cut its revenue guidance for 2023-24 to 1-2.5 per cent compared to the 1-3.5 per cent given earlier.
Its attrition rate on a 12-month trailing basis was down to 14.6 per cent, from 17.3 per cent a quarter ago. Its net staff headcount was down by 7,530 in the September quarter to 328,764.
In the euphoric days of 2021 up to September-October 2022, the likes of TCS, Infosys, Wipro, HCL, Tech Mahindra, Cognizant, Accenture and several other IT firms hired 800,000 freshers over the past two financial years, as per staffing firm TeamLease Digital and industry estimates.
TeamLease Digital has projected a 30 per cent year-on-year decline in FY24.
Besides, several thousands of freshers from the 2022 and 2023 batches of engineering colleges who bagged jobs with IT services companies, on- or off-campus, are facing endless onboarding delays.
On the onboarding delays faced by freshers, the company said: Committed to existing offers, at appropriate time.
Infosys’ net profit rose 3.1 per cent year-on-year to Rs 6,215 crore for the September 2023 quarter. Its revenue rose 6.7 per cent to Rs 38,994 crore, according to its result declared on Thursday evening.