This is higher than the 97,000 freshers onboarded during the same period last year.
As existing junior employees become billable at a time of macroeconomic uncertainty, companies are looking to improve utilization levels and doubling down on training programmes while reducing dependency on lateral hiring.
Barring Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), the rest of the IT service providers have reported stable or lower attrition numbers compared to the previous quarter.
“Most service providers have learnt to manage attrition better and invest more with talent that is loyal to the business,” said Phil Fersht, chief executive of HfS Research. “At the junior level, the options to jump ship to startups and tech firms are diminishing… some providers are also learning how to manage hybrid workers better and create more challenging roles for people.”
As of the second quarter, IT companies have not indicated any major change in their fresher intake plans for the year except TCS, which has upgraded its fresher hiring guidance from to 47,000 from 40,000 earlier.
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“We added 35,000 freshers in the last two quarters and we have invested the last 6-9 months in organic talent development with some market addition of laterals,” said Milind Lakkad, chief human resources officer, TCS during its results announcement.
Following a period of aggressive talent acquisition during FY22 when industry leaders hired over 230,000 freshers, this year the top four IT companies are expected to hire a total of 157,000 freshers by March 2023, a reduction of over 30%.
Infosys said it would recruit 50,000 people from campuses in the current fiscal year and has already
onboarded 40,000 freshers during the first half.
Bengaluru-based Wipro plans to hire a total of 30,000 freshers for FY23.
“We have onboarded over 14,000 freshers in H1 which is about 72% of what we added in the whole of last year,” said Thierry Delaporte, CEO and managing director, Wipro.
HCLTech added over 16,000 freshers during the first half and plans to hire around 30,000 freshers during the fiscal year.
