The good thing is that GCC performed well and for the first time made far more hires than IT services. The industry saw a net growth of 60,000 people in the current financial year, taking the total number to 5.4 million. NASSCOM didn’t break it out, but given that large IT services companies are seeing a decline in headcount, most of the net growth will be due to GCC. In 2022-23, the GCC is expected to add 2.8 lakh employees, taking its talent base to more than 1.6 million.
“What we are seeing is improvement due to more hiring during Covid and we are seeing some level of recovery which was needed for the industry. We are also seeing hiring for roles in AI, data, cloud and cyber security,” Nasscom Chairman Debjani Ghosh said at a virtual media conference on Friday to talk about the findings of its Strategic Review 2024.
Even during FY2021, which was hit by a sharp decline in growth related to the pandemic, the Indian tech sector added 1.3 lakh employees. In the next financial year, it hired 4.5 lakh freshers, the highest growth in a year.
Nasscom said 53 new GCCs were added in 2023. Recently, UK-based financial services major Lloyds Banking Group opened a new technology center in Hyderabad. It plans to expand its talent base to 600 technologists by the end of this year. Last year, National Australia Bank (NAB), Australia’s largest bank, established the NAB Innovation Center India with approximately 1,000 employees. Asked whether the GCC has taken over India’s tech narrative, Ghosh said it is a model of co-existence because there is enough convergence in the work the GCC is doing, and the work the tech services companies are doing. There is a difference. “Of course, there is some level of overlap that is bound to occur. The decline in growth rate in services is not because of GCC, but because of what I talked about, which is at the customer end, there was uncertainty and it took more time to take decisions. What we are seeing today is a different model where co-existence is becoming the norm,” she said.
Ramkumar Ramamurthy, partner at tech growth advisory firm Catlinx, said, “The NASSCOM data is a resounding validation that the GCC has outpaced third-party IT services players in net headcount last year. Even if discretionary spending bounces back, I wouldn’t be surprised if this trend continues for some time as the GCCs become powerhouses for digital transformation and innovation, driven by disruptive technologies like cloud, analytics and AI, IoT, cybersecurity and hybrid Are taking advantage of. reality.”
Nasscom said there is a nine-fold increase in GenAI-related activities in the 2023 calendar year compared to the previous year, and 650,000 employees are being trained on Gen AI skills in 2023-2024. Nearly 90% of the top 25 providers have made large-scale GenAI skills commitments and AI/ML job postings have increased by 15% in the last 12 months.
The Nasscom CEO Survey revealed that the hiring outlook will improve in FY2025 with an increase in fresher and lateral hiring. Hi-tech, BFSI, and technology, media and telecom, which performed poorly in 2023, are expected to improve in 2024.
