Leading IT firms in India lost close to 70K employees in last fiscal year

Amid the muted revenue growth in the Indian IT services sector due to global macroeconomic headwinds, leading IT companies saw a drop of nearly 70,000 employees in the last fiscal year (FY24).

Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Wipro and Tech Mahindra, among others, lost maximum employees in FY24.

While Infosys saw its employee headcount drop by 25,994, the headcount at TCS went down by 13,249, in FY24. IT bellwether Wipro saw its employee strength fall by 6,180 in the fourth quarter (Q4) of FY24.

When it comes to the full year, the IT services major witnessed its headcount decline by 24,516. Tech Mahindra had a total headcount of 145,455 in FY24, down 795 (on-quarter) and 6,945 (full year).

Among the leading IT services companies, HCLTech was an exception which had a total headcount of 227,481 in the last fiscal year, with a net addition of 1,537 employees. According to a latest Crisil Ratings report, the IT services sector in the country is likely to see a second successive year of muted revenue growth, at 5-7 per cent in FY25.

As revenue growth remained subdued, IT service companies pulled back on the addition of fresh talent, resulting in headcount reductions by 4 per cent (on-year) in December 2023. Aditya Jhaver, Director, CRISIL Ratings, said that the slowdown in technology spending will continue this fiscal year, weighing on the revenue growth of IT service providers.

"Revenue from BFSI and retail segments will continue to be a drag with subdued growth of 4-5 per cent while manufacturing and healthcare will grow at a healthy 9-10 per cent," he noted.