At the time when the Indian IT majors are going slow on hiring due to rising rupee and a downturn in the US economy, global software firms are hiking their staff capacity in the country and plans to hire 40,000 employees over the next couple of years.
In the last three months, foreign IT firms have announced their plans of hiring 40,000 people in India within the next two years, a study by industry body Assocham said.
"The foreign firms are planning the intake of 40,000 (employees) as announced during January to April 2008," the study said. This would be a significant development for the job market as the shrinking margins had dimmed the hiring outlook of the Indian IT majors, it said.
Among the Indian firms disclosing their plans, Satyam Computer Services, one of the top IT firms, stated the addition of 3,000 people this year.
Information Technology, one of the highest employment generating segments in the services sector, has been feeling the pressure of increased value of the rupee against dollar, rising wage inflation and the slowdown in the US economy.
"At the time when the Indian firms seem to be curtailing the wage hikes and right-size the staff strength to prevent the squeezing margins, the robust headcount expansion plans of the foreign IT companies renders a positive outlook to the job market," Assocham President Venugopal N Dhoot said.
The largest headcount expansion has been planned by US-based Computer Sciences Corp. The company has announced the addition of 16,500 headcount over the next two years.
The second largest expansion plan has been announced by global business process outsourcing giant Cognizant, which intends to raise its Indian strength by 14,700 this year. UK-based Zylog Systems has drawn the hiring plans of more than 4,000 employees, it said.
Xansa, another UK-based firm, has announced its plans to double headcount from 5,200 to 10,000 in three years. Ness Technologies, an Israel-based firm, has announced recruitment of 1,000 people this year to its present strength of 2,800.
Another firm, Vmware Inc, plans to raise its engineering staff to over 1,000 people in the next two years. However, the Indian IT industry appears to have been hit by the US slowdown with recruitment firms saying the software companies are trying to cut down on new additions.
Analysts feel that there is a definite decline in the recruitments in the last two-to-three months. This is prominent in the IT services segment and not so much in the business process outsourcing and product development segment.