Infosys to add 30,000 personnel in July

Underlining the twin facts that the global recession is almost history and the euro zone crisis is unlikely to cripple Indian companies, information technology major Infosys Technologies plans to continue its recent hiring spree.

Infosys will add 30,000 employees to beef up its existing 1,15,000 staff strength by next month, chairman and managing director of the company Kris Gopalakrishnan said in Thiruvanathapuram on Thursday.

''The hiring target of 30,000 is nearly complete. We've started sending letters this month,'' Kris Gopalakrishnan said. ''We ourselves have given a growth guidance of 16-18 per cent this year, and the larger companies are all showing growth,'' he said on the sidelines of a CII conference, adding that ''we are scrambling to hire''.

The positive outlook of Infosys extends to its China operations, where it has development centres in Shanghai and Hangzhou. The headcount there is 2,000 and the operations have broken even. Gopalakrishnan said his company's China experience was ''very good'', though the Chinese authorities took two years to decide on the company's demand for a 100 per cent ownership. ''Once that decision was taken, it was smooth sailing for us in China,'' he said.

Gopalakrishnan said the return of the IT sector to the growth path would be reflected in the forthcoming quarterly results, and that the improvement in fortunes of the technology sector in general could also be gathered from Nasscom's (the industry body) projection of a 16-per cent growth for the business process outsourcing sector this year.

On the issue of the employability of graduates from different states, Gopalakrishnan said the skills gap appeared to be a nation-wide phenomenon, but added that Infosys' experience was that graduates from Kerala showed a higher conversion (percentage of job aspirants who qualify for the job) at the recruitment level.