India IT job openings plunge 60% over two years
BENGALURU, INDIA — The IT services sector, a significant employer in India’s white-collar job market, saw a substantial decrease in job openings at the end of January.
According to data sourced from LinkedIn and other top job boards by specialist staffing firm Xpheno, there were only 50,000 open positions last month, down 21% from January 2023 and 60% from January 2022.
About 80% of these job listings targeted entry-level roles requiring 0-2 years of experience, indicating a significant hiring freeze at the foundational level of IT companies.
The decline in hiring also persists despite a notable 8-9% drop in attrition rates at tech services firms, reflecting a cautious approach to both new and replacement hiring.
“The 67% drop in [the] IT sector’s collective talent demand over two years is primarily driven by the IT services cohort’s low-to-no hiring action,” said Xpheno Co-founder Kamal Karanth.
Karanth also pointed out that the IT services leaders — like Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys, and Wipro — have not engaged in campus hiring for two cycles, contributing to the sharp decline in talent demand. This decrease is expected to have long-term implications on the talent supply chain, potentially leading to challenges when market buoyancy returns.
Overall, the white-collar job market has seen a decrease in vacancies, with 210,000 active jobs in January, down 24% from January 2023 and 35% from January 2022.
Experts anticipate this cautious hiring stance to continue for at least the next two quarters, influenced by economic uncertainty and recent technological advances, particularly in artificial intelligence, which may reduce the demand for certain jobs.
