Published & Updated as on - 2010-04-26

NEW DELHI: IT giants Infosys, TCS and Wipro hired over 20,000 employees in the January-March quarter, with improving business conditions propelling their recruitment plans.

According to human resources experts, IT and IT-enabled services are expected to see a huge jump in hiring this year and major companies in the sector have already set the pace.

The three IT companies put together have made net additions of 20,014 employees (taking into account attrition) in the January-March quarter.

IT giant Infosys hired as many as 9,313 employees in the quarter, but the net addition after taking into account attrition was 3,914, according to the company's financial statement for the period.

The hiring increased the total workforce of the company and its subsidiaries to 1,13,796 employees at the end of March this year.

Another IT major Tata Consultancy Services took on board a net 10,775 employees in the last quarter of 2009-10 fiscal. TCS' total employee strength has soared to 1,60,429 at the end of the last fiscal.

The hiring momentum picked up from the third quarter of the last fiscal, when TCS had made 7,692 net additions, compared with just 320 recruitments in the previous quarter.

Besides, Wipro made net additions of 5,325 employees in the Q4 FY10, taking its total strength to 1,08,071.

According to a recent survey by staffing firm Team Lease, Indian companies are increasingly upbeat about their hiring plans across almost all sectors in April-June period this year, led by an improving business outlook.

HR experts predict companies in the IT & ITes sector would hire 1,50,000 professionals in the fiscal year 2011.

Source: ET 26/4/10

Wipro promises 100% variable pay

BANGALORE: Wipro’s 8% wage hike appears to pale in comparison to its peers’ hikes, but the company is thinking of alternative ways to compensate its employees, in what is seen as a scramble to reduce attrition that soared to 17% in January-March.

“Just 8% compensation (increase) is not the game. The game has to be much wider,” Suresh Vaswani, joint chief executive, told ET. “People are big on our agenda. People attrition is a top concern for us. Compensation has to reflect the market situation and we will never compromise on that.”

Bellwether Infosys Technologies gave a 14% average wage hike from April 1, and Tata Consultancy Services 13%, which was announced earlier this month. Wipro has promised its staff a 100% variable pay for this year, which in other years is withheld if employees fail to meet 80% of the assigned target.

“This is an unusual year, and that is why we are talking of a fixed variable,” Pratik Kumar, head of human resources, told ET. The objective is to relieve staff of target pressure and perform optimally, he added.

Of course, given this is a year of fast growth for the technology outsourcing sector, the move to pay entire variable may prove to be a smart one, as larger peer Tata Consultancy Services gave 125% variable pay in the just-ended quarter.

The move also hedges Wipro against future volatility as a significant part of the 8% wage hike given in February was in the form of an assured variable for this year, Suresh Senapaty, chief executive officer, said. Around 16% of the company’s wage bill of Rs 2,333 crore (January-March) is variable as 10-35% of employees salaries are paid based on targets depending on their seniority.

Wipro is also planning a policy to include engineers in bonus reward programmes. So far, sales staff alone gets bonuses for bagging a project. But delivery is integrally dependent on engineers who execute outsourcing projects.

“Without that program manager, you would not have survived,” Mr Vaswani said. “Why are only the sales people getting the bonuses, why are the delivery people not getting if they do a fantastic job of execution?”

Software engineers working on large and complex outsourcing projects for customers such as British Petroleum will now become eligible for the new incentive programme, Mr Kumar added. The incentives will be linked to profitability of a project and the savings generated “would become part of a kitty to be shared as bonus by the team members”, Mr Kumar said.

Compensation will also rise mid-year, along with promotions that will be decided in the next 3-4 months, Mr Kumar said. “Every year, 15-20% get promotions,” he added. Wipro may also look at increasing the levels within the organisation to give faster promotions, particularly to best-performing individuals.

Source: ET 24/4/10

Infinite Computer to hire up to 1,000 people in next 6-9 mnths

NEW DELHI: Infinite Computer Solutions plans to hire 500 to 1,000 employees in the next six to nine months, as part of its strategic alliance with global on-demand services company iYogi.

"We will be hiring 500-1,000 employees in the next six to nine months months for setting up a services desk to enhance iYogi's global remote technology support services," Infinite Computer Solutions Managing Director Upinder Zutshi told PTI.

"We have already set up a separate facility in Bengaluru with 400 seats which would be increased as we hire more people. We have already taken on board around 250 people so far," Zutshi said.

The company would hire staff between one to eight years of experience.

Infinite, a global service provider of infrastructure management services got listed on the bourses in February.

Earlier this week, Infinite Computer had announced entering into a three-year agreement with Infinite's infrastructure services group to provide technical support services on iYogi's global delivery platform, iMantra.

Infinite would leverage iMantra, in order to seamlessly extend support to iYogi's customers. iYogi offers personalized computer support for consumers and small businesses across the US, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia.

The company has also worked previously with large enterprises as a services provider for Remote Infrastructure Management.

"This alliance positions us to deliver support to the consumers through a partnership model with iYogi's, which is experiencing rapid growth and success through a unique direct-to-consumer model that addresses the huge demand for superior technical support services," Zutshi said.

Infinite Computer Solutions is a global service provider of infrastructure management services, intellectual property (IP) leveraged solutions and IT Services, focused on telecom, media, technology and other industries.

Source: ET 25/4/10

HCL Tech to focus on hiring freshers, non-linear growth

NEW DELHI: IT company HCL Technologies plans to hire more freshers in future and eyes increasing revenue from non-linear growth.

India's fifth largest software exporter announced a 78 per cent rise in its net income at USD 77 million on a yearly basis backed by 13 new deals, as the economic recovery slowly takes root.

However, rupee appreciation and a loss-making BPO unit pose challenges to the IT company, which will effect a wage hike in July and hire 5,000 freshers this year adding to costs.

"Exchange rate volatility, wage hike, hiring are continued processes in IT business and one has to live with such issues. The company has taken various steps to achieve growth even when companies were struggling under recession.

"We have taken up non-linear growth model for some of our projects and this has fetched 12 per cent of our revenue. This is the first time we are announcing this. Of course over a period time it (percentage of revenue from non-linear growth) will increase," HCL Tech CFO Anil Chanana told PTI.

Non linear growth is the latest buzzword in the Indian software sector, aimed at pruning down manpower-related HR costs. Under such a model, IT companies don't get paid based on the number of people used on a project but depending on the output.

"We have been doing more of lateral hiring than just freshers... Of course the lateral hiring is costly. However, going forward, we have decided to rely more on freshers, train them and use them. So we will be increasingly using freshers in our business," Chanana said.

Posting robust results for the March quarter, the company has a net debt position of USD 104 million as on March 2010. It generated USD 250 million cash in the first nine months of 2009-10 against USD 200 million in the previous year.

The company's hedges are at USD 468 million. In addition we have foreign currency loan on our balance sheet worth USD 300 million, which acts as a natural hedge, said Chanana.

This hedge position of USD 468 million is enough cover for the next two quarters. These were taken three years back and will get utilised over a period of time. Significant portions of this will get utilised in the April-June and July-September quarters, Chanana said.

Source: ET 25/4/10

Indian cos' hiring activity picks up 1.5 pc in March

NEW DELHI: India Inc's hiring activity picked up 1.5 per cent in March, led by IT-enabled services, insurance and auto sectors, a report by job portal naukri.com has said.

A job portal’s monthly Job Speak survey reflected renewed optimism among recruiters, with the new job index moving up to 962 in March compared to 947 in February.

The portal takes into account not only the jobs posted online by its clients but also those made by them with the help of the website's tele-calling team.

"The hiring intentions of companies in most industry sectors seem to be moving in a positive direction as reflected by the consecutively upward moving Job index in the first quarter of 2010. It seems 'cautious optimism' among employers has given way to definite optimism," said Sumeet Singh, the National Head (Marketing and Communication) of Info Edge, which owns the website.

Hiring in ITeS and insurance sectors have seen maximum movement with the index moving up by 13 per cent and 15 per cent respectively in March over the last month.

Recruitment in auto sector moved up by 8 per cent and in pharma sector by 7 per cent in March, the report said.

Professionals in production, banking and HR also witnessed an increase in hiring by 8 to 12 per cent in March over February, the report said.

Overall, the index seems to be moving in a robust manner with hiring moving up across all industry verticals, functional areas and cities.

Among cities, Delhi has emerged as the most bullish on hiring, with the city-wise job index moving up 13 per cent over the last month.

Source: ET 15/4/10

Saudi is top destination for expatriate jobs in Gulf

DUBAI: Expatriates are more likely to secure a new job in Saudi Arabia than in any other country in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, a survey has found.

According to the latest data revealed by GulfTalent.com, the number of expats employed in the kingdom rose by 2.4 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2009.

Qatar and Oman also saw increases over the same period while Bahrain, the UAE and Kuwait saw a drop in the number of expatriate employees, with declines of 7.7 per cent, 4.2 per cent and 2.8 per cent respectively.

The company compiled the results, based on actual staff recruitment, after speaking to 11,000 managers across the region.

"Interviews with hiring managers found that the increased demand for staff in Saudi Arabia and Qatar was being satisfied by a combination of new recruitment, as well as staff relocations within the region, with companies moving large numbers of their employees from slower markets such as the UAE," the company said in a statement.

The region's logistics jobs increased by 3 per cent, while retail employment saw a rise of 2.6 per cent, the firm said.

However, positions in real estate and the oil and gas industry saw declines of 7.8 per cent and 4.7 per cent respectively.

The research found that among GCC's expat workers, Western nationals were most likely to return home if they lost their jobs, with 55 per cent doing so, compared to 37 per cent of Asians and 18 per cent of Arabs.

Qatar had the highest number of expats leaving the country to return home at 54 per cent, in part due to its strict sponsorship laws, the statement said.

The UAE had the highest proportion of unemployed expats choosing to remain in the country to look for new employment.

This reflected "both the challenging employment environment as well as the popularity of the country with expatriates," the statement said.

Source: ET 20/4/10