Q1 takes the heat off IT jobs

By agencies   |   Friday, 05 August 2005, 19:30 IST
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BANGALORE: While the country's technology sector has been projecting high confidence in hiring, a close study of the industry trend shows that there was a decline in recruitments from March to June this year, with some companies even predicting a cool-off period till September. "There was a slight cool down with a drop of 10-20 per cent in hiring by IT firms during April-June this year as compared to last year," says Gautam Sinha, CEO, TVA Infotech. Though this quarter is seeing a revival of aggressive hiring, it will not have the frenzy of 2004. Referring to the three-month lull, he says massive hiring in calendar 2004 was primarily driven by the pent-up demand of the earlier years post-downturn. "It is logical to have a slight cool down as companies could have faced issues relating to employees utilization among others," he added. The software job market, which crossed the 600,000 mark early this year, has been growing at 10-15 per cent and may touch 700,000 by the year-end, he says. This lull was substantiated by the Ma Foi Employment Index (MEI), which tracks the level of recruitment activity in the country. It was at 1.28 per cent in April-June quarter, compared to 3.35 per cent during the March quarter and 3.19 per cent in December quarter. Pandia Rajan, Managing Director, Ma Foi, says the Ma Foi Employment Survey for July-September, also has predicted a relatively cooling off quarter (July-September) for the country's job market. The survey covers sectors other than IT and ITeS such as pharma, logistics, telecom etc. In fact, the period also witnessed some performance-based retrenchments in some IT companies, according to Rajan. Polaris has reduced its headcount by 150 as part of `role fitment exercise' in which non-performers were asked to go. TCS, which introduced a salary module-based on EVA about two years back, asked about 1,000 non-performers to go in Q1. Says Phani Pattamatta, Deputy General Manager, South Operations, Adecco Peopleone, "IT hiring seems to have risen suddenly in July because companies are projecting their head count only now." He agrees that it was a little low in February and March but it has risen consistently since then." Peopleone has been closing about 50-60 positions a month now, compared to 40 in March this year. Nirupama VG, Associate Director, TeamLease Services, says the recruitment industry has been on an upswing from last June. "In March the company had something like 3,000 requirements at any given point of time, which is now touching 10,000," she says.

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