India’s top IT firms are hiring fewer grads
NEW DELHI, INDIA — India’s top technology services companies have sharply reduced fresh graduate intake, as artificial intelligence (AI) adoption and margin pressures push firms to prioritize specialized skills over bulk campus recruitment.
Campus hiring down 80% from peak
Fresher hiring in India’s information technology (IT) sector fell from a peak of 600,000 in fiscal year 2022 to roughly 120,000 in fiscal year 2025 — an 80% decline in three years. Entry-level openings dropped 44% year-over-year, with active tech job postings hitting their lowest level in 28 months.
According to a report from Livemint, Wipro cut its fresher hiring target to 7,500–8,000, down from 10,000, while Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) shed 23,460 employees in fiscal year 2026 as part of an AI-first services pivot. Tech Mahindra moved to redeploy existing talent rather than absorb large new graduate cohorts.
Sushovon Nayak, lead IT analyst at Anand Rathi Institutional Equities, said AI is reshaping demand at the entry level. “Selective IT firms are looking to hire fewer young people, as automation tools are reducing the need for young graduates unless they have specialised skill sets,” Nayak said.
India’s mass campus hiring era — when IT firms onboarded tens of thousands of graduates annually for bulk service delivery — is over.
AI shifts demand from freshers to specialists
“With the new emerging AI talent, the tech services firms are having to hire employees with a higher calibre, which is harder to source, and in general, do not view the tech services firms as their first choice to work at,” said Peter Bendor-Samuel, founder of Everest Group.
The structural shift predates AI — revenue and margin pressures since 2022 ended the era of hiring ahead of demand — but automation has accelerated it, raising the qualification bar for entry-level roles.
Among major firms, the under-30 workforce share has shrunk: Infosys reported a drop from 53% to 50.7% in one year, while TCS saw its under-30 share fall to 48%.
Approximately 1,000 fresh graduates were still awaiting joining letters from Tech Mahindra as of recent reports, highlighting the gap between announced hiring targets and actual absorption.
India’s IT sector is not just hiring less — it is hiring differently, and graduates without AI-relevant skills will struggle for what remains.
For business process outsourcing (BPO) providers drawing on India’s talent market, this structural shift rewards AI-capable specialists over generalist graduates. BPO operators that build AI upskilling pathways can fill specialist roles without competing for a shrinking lateral hire pool.
Outsourcing providers that move early on workforce development gain a competitive advantage as the market reconfigures around specialist demand.
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Disclosure: Outsource Accelerator uses AI tools in the backend of its editorial workflow. Every article is reviewed and verified by a human editor before publication.
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