Indian IT giant Wipro is planning to reduce hiring graduates for 2024

Wipro, an Indian tech-service outsourcing firm, is planning to reduce its hiring of engineering graduates this year. The reason behind this is stated to be less spending by clients.

Wipro is India’s fourth-largest software services firm and is usually the biggest recruiter of engineering graduates. They have said that they will only hire graduates they have only made offers to and have not bought onboard yet.

"This year, as witnessed throughout the industry, there has been a shift in the environmental landscape," remarked Saurabh Govil, Chief Human Resources Officer, during an interview. "Consequently, we will exercise prudence." Govil additionally announced that Wipro, having on boarded 22,000 recent graduates in the fiscal year ending in March, will be reducing its overall intake of new recruits in the current fiscal year.

Other Indian IT giants, such as Infosys Ltd. and HCL Technologies, have also planned to rely more on their existing workforce rather than hiring new employees. Infosys Ltd. had hired around 50,000 new graduates in the last fiscal year and is unlikely to conduct any college placements this year. HCL is expected to hire only 10,000 new graduates, which is 5,000 less than its initial plan and almost half of what it hired last year. This downward hiring trend is likely to affect smaller outsourcing firms too.

The IT sector in India has been in a slump for some time, with several companies announcing layoffs and other larger firms, such as Tata Consultancy Services, trying to reduce costs and improve employee productivity.

This is bad news for students graduating in 2024 and will further worsen an ongoing job crisis. This could also take a hit on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s electoral campaign in 2024.

India is one of the largest employers in South Asia and usually hires thousands of college graduates every year. These graduates have to go through mandatory industry training before they can undertake any client projects.

Indian IT services had been hiring very aggressively during the COVID pandemic in order to meet the demands of clients around the world who outsourced to keep running their businesses smoothly. The once-booming scenario has now lost its heat, with clients grappling with elevated interest rates and inflation. Moreover, the global economic landscape has been riddled with uncertainty due to conflicts in Ukraine and Israel. Consequently, clients are curbing their technology expenditures, forcing IT companies to either halt or significantly reduce their hiring efforts.