Attrition touches double digits in IT

Thursday, 25 March 2010, 23:39 IST   |    13 Comments
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Attrition touches double digits in IT
Mumabi: After a year of freeze on recruitments due to global meltdown, Job-hopping has again resurfaced as a trend in the information technology (IT) industry. Attrition levels are touching double-digit figures across IT companies, reports DNA. According to Teamlease, one of the largest staffing solution firms in the country, "a steady and drastic increase in attrition levels" has been seen since January-February. "Attrition began mid last year. However, around December 2009, it went up by 20 percent from the previous quarter. In the past three months, companies have seen almost 25-30 percent rise in attrition compared to last year," the company's General Manager, Surabhi Mathur Gandhi, said. "We expect attrition levels to go up even higher in the coming quarters," Surabhi said, adding that current estimates indicated that by the end of 2010, attrition will be 30 -35 percent higher. "There has been a definite rise in attrition across the industry in the past two-three months. With markets improving and the number of job offers going up in the new financial year, we are bound to see more movements," TV Mohandas Pai, Board Member and Director (human resources), Infosys, told DNA. He, however, said the job-hopping this time was not accompanied by high salary gains. "The industry will not grow like it did previously and therefore, it is not really a boom time for salaries," Pai said. Ganesh Natarajan, Vice-Chairman and CEO of Zensar Technologies, said attrition had already risen from 2009's 6 percent-7 percent to 10 percent -11 percent. "This is almost 50 percent higher than last year's figures in corresponding quarters. In the coming months, all companies are likely to see people switch jobs and the numbers would be higher in large firms," he said. S Janakiraman, President and group CEO (product engineering services), MindTree, said, "It (attrition rate hike) is a short-term spike that occurs after every slowdown and will vanish. We had seen a similar trend in 2001-02 when the market rebounded after a slump of two years." Janakiraman estimated the industry attrition rate to have doubled to 13-15 percent in the past two months. E Balaji, CEO of Ma Foi Management Consultancy, also said the all-India attrition rate was up 10 percent this month from 5-6 percent last year. He said the rate was highest in Bangalore and concentrated in the IT-BPO sector, which was worst hit by recession. "In the IT-BPO sector, attrition is much higher at 15.16 percent compared to the industry average of 10-12 percent." Analysts said the turnaround in the economic scenario was throwing up job opportunities with better perks and remuneration. Besides, the restructuring exercise undertaken by some firms has caused resentment among employees, prompting them to look out. For example, about 2-3 percent of the workforce at Infosys did not like the company's recently launched role and career enhancement programme and the firm lost 4,000 employees in February alone. However, IT industry insiders do not think attrition has increased greatly. "Attrition shot up in the November to January period, but has since returned to normal. As lateral hiring is experience-based, I believe there was a spurt in such hiring in that period. A dot doesn't create a trend," Jeya Kumar, CEO, Patni Computer Systems, said.

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