Thaindian News

Bangalore, April 13 (IANS) An upbeat Infosys Technologies would hire about 30,000 techies, including 19,000 freshers, during the next 12 months, a senior official said Tuesday.
“We have already made 19,000 campus offers for this fiscal (2010-11) and will hire about 6,000 laterals and another 5,000 for back office operations in the next months,” Infosys board member and human resources development (HRD) head T.V. Mohandas Pai told IANS.

Of the 19,000 campus offers made in the quarter of last fiscal (2009-10) across the country, the IT bellwether expects about 16,000 engineering graduates to join during the fiscal for training and formal induction by year-end.

“Though gross edition will be about 30,000 this fiscal, net hiring depends on how many will remain or we will be able to retain, as the job market in the IT industry has turned hot again, riding on the prospects a strong rebound in a buoyant economy,” he said.

With the projected gross addition, the total headcount of the company, including its subsidiaries in India and overseas, is expected to be a whopping 143,796 by this fiscal end as against 113,796 by the end of fiscal 2009-10.

“During the last fiscal (FY 2010), we planned to hire about 18,000 techies, but ended taking 27,639 techies, ramping the additions in the last two quarters on signs of recovery in the tech sector and keeping in view our requirements for a strong bench strength this fiscal,” Pai said.

In the fourth quarter (January-March) of fiscal 2010, gross addition was 9,313 but net addition 3,914, as 5,399 techies opted to quit. About 500 employees exited involuntarily after failing to make the grade for absorption post-training.

“Our attrition level has gone up two percent sequentially to 13.4 percent in the fourth quarter (January-March) from 11.6 percent in the previous quarter (October-December) though it remained flat on annualised basis,” he recalled.

The company also increased the compensation by 10 percent across the board and promoted several lateral techies in the middle and junior levels.

“The incremental cost of hike in salaries in a tough fiscal year was $134 million (Rs.596 crore/Rs.5.96 billion), which is a record in the Indian IT industry,” Pai claimed.

Noting that 2009 was a seminal year despite the downturn, Pai said the company undertook possibly the world’s largest career architecture transformation for 114,000 employees.

“Besides hiring 27,639 techies, we enhanced training to two million person-days, which is an increase of 106 percent and expanded our campus connect and Spark programmes to touch over 97,000 students,” he added.