New Delhi: As per a recent study conducted by ASSOCHAM, highest body of the Chambers of Commerce of India, despite the U.S. slowdown and rupee appreciation, Indian IT professionals will be in demand with global software firms expanding their employee capacity in India.

Over the last three months, foreign IT firms have announced plans of hiring about 40,000 people in India by 2010. This is a significant news for IT professionals at a time when Indian firms are in the process of curtailing salary hikes and are right-sizing staff strength to prevent squeezing margins.

The largest headcount expansion activity is planned by the U.S. based Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) who hope to recruit about 16,500 people over the next two years.The next in line is the Cognizant, which plans to ramp up its India headcount by 14,700 this year. UK based Zylog Systems and Xansa have also drawn hiring plans of more than 4000 and 5000 employees respectively. Ness Technologies, an Israel based firm plans on hiring another 1000 people this year while Vmware, plans to scale its engineering staff to 1000 plus in the next two years.