On the sunny side, GCCs did well, hiring far more than IT services for the first time ever. The industry saw a net addition of 60,000 people in the current fiscal year taking the total tally to 5.4 million. Nasscom did not break this up, but given that the big IT services companies are seeing a decline in headcount, much of the net addition would be on account of GCCs. In 2022-23, GCCs had added 2.8 lakh employees, taking its talent base to over 1.6 million.
“What we are seeing is a correction due to over-hiring during Covid and we’re witnessing some level of correction that was needed for the industry. We are also seeing hiring for roles in AI, data, cloud, and cybersecurity,” Nasscom president Debjani Ghosh said on Friday at a virtual media conference to talk about the findings of its Strategic Review 2024.
Even during FY2021, which was marred by pandemic-related sharp declines in growth, the Indian tech sector added 1.3 lakh employees. In the following fiscal, it hired 4.5 lakh freshers, the highest addition in a single year.
Nasscom said 53 new GCCs were added in 2023. Recently, UK-based financial services major Lloyds Banking Group opened a new technology centre in Hyderabad. It plans to grow its talent base to 600 technologists by this year-end. Last year, Australia’s largest bank the National Australia Bank (NAB) set up the NAB Innovation Centre India with nearly 1,000 employees. Asked if GCCs have captured India’s tech narrative, Ghosh said it’s a model of coexistence because there is enough differentiation in the work that GCCs are doing, and the work tech services companies are doing. “Of course, there’s some level of overlap that’s bound to happen. The decline in the growth rate in services is not due to GCCs, but what I talked about, which is at the client end, there was uncertainty and decision-making took longer. What we are seeing today is a differentiated model where coexistence is becoming the norm,” she said.
Ramkumar Ramamoorthy, partner at Catalincs, a tech growth advisory firm, said, “The data from Nasscom is a thumping validation of GCCs materially outpacing third-party IT services players in net headcount addition this past year. Even if discretionary spending were to bounce back, I would not be surprised if this trend continues for some time as GCCs have become the powerhouse for digital transformation and innovation, leveraging disruptive technologies such as cloud, analytics, and AI, IoT, cybersecurity and mixed reality.”
Nasscom said there is a ninefold increase in genAI related activities in the 2023 calendar year compared to the previous year, and 650,000 employees being trained on gen AI skills in 2023-2024. About 90% of the top 25 providers have made large-scale genAI skilling commitments and there’s a 15% growth in AI/ML job postings in the last 12 months.
The Nasscom CEO Survey showed that the hiring outlook will improve in FY2025, with an increase in fresher and lateral hiring. Hitech, BFSI, and technology, media & telecom, that underperformed in 2023 are expected to improve in 2024.
