Mass hiring by Indian IT firms on the decline

Bengaluru: Bulkhiring by Indian IT services companies may soon be a thing of the past as artificial intelligence (AI) is changing the contours of recruitment in the $290 billion-strong IT industry in the country.

According to HR sector experts, though campus placement from engineering colleges has been continuing in recent months, the number of students getting offer letters has come down. They said, given automation of several tasks at entry level by AI, fewer fresh graduates are being absorbed by IT firms.

For years, large IT companies like Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Infosys, Wipro, HCLTech and others have been visiting engineering college campuses to hire students in thousands. Such bulk hiring and promising career path afterwards have attracted several students to opt for computer science as their preferred area of engineering education. However, things have started to change in recent years as AI adoption increases.

“Mass hiring is on the decline. We can’t say it is over, but it is clearly on the decline. Post-pandemic, most colleges came up with the advertisement of hiring of higher number of students. That kind of thing is not seen now. Though hiring by IT firms is happening through campus interviews, it is at a lower scale,” Aditya Narayan Mishra, CEO of CIEL HR, told The Hans India.

“This is the new normal. New technology like AI is making deep inroads and professionals should have these skills and demonstrate the skills during interviews,” Aditya added.

Sources in the know from engineering colleges echoed similar sentiments. However, they pointed out that offer letters issued this year is likely to be more than those issued last year.

Notably, Infosys hired around 12,000 freshers in the first half of FY26 and is on track to hire 20,000 freshers for the full fiscal year. HCLTech added 5,196 freshers during the second quarter of ongoing financial year. Similarly, Wipro onboarded 2,900 freshers during July- September period.

Such hiring trend indicates that fresher hiring has gained some momentum over the last year.

However, the demand for skillsets has changed a lot. Emerging skills like artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, cloud computing, data analytics and other related domains have been on demand. While fresher intake has gone down, companies are adopting stringent norms with regard to bench strength.

Bench strength is the number of employees kept on reserve by an IT company without allocating any client project.