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Bengaluru: Fresher hiring is projected to remain muted in 2025-26 due to slump in demand from the IT and technology sector, owing to automation and adoption of AI, among other reasons.
India’s engineering colleges produce an average 9 lakh BE and B-Tech graduates annually. Of this, an estimated 1,20,000 will be absorbed by the tech sector, which is the same as last year, according to data available with Xpheno, a staffing firm specialised in tech-sector hiring.
The tech sector was earlier projected to hire 1,50,000 freshers this year. However, developments in the US, a key market for the tech industry, has disrupted the plans for the current year as well. In the first six months this fiscal, 7 large IT services companies have absorbed a net of 23,000 freshers.
“...The current active demand for entry-level talent in India is under 50,000 across all sectors, with only one-third of it coming from the tech sector,” said Kamal Karanth, co-founder, Xpheno said.
The state of fresher and entry-level hiring continues to be under stress as industries attempt to stabilise their talent plans and costs, he said.
Campus hiring has traditionally been driven by the IT sector, specifically the IT services cohort that is known to be the largest contributor to the talent build process in the tech sector.
The tech sector’s intake volumes, against the backdrop of India annually producing around 9 lakh BE, B-Tech graduates, remains a concern, Karanth added.
Of the 9 lakh graduates, 2.30 lakh are computer science graduates and another 13,000 are from top engineering colleges like IITs, NITs, BITS and other top-tier institutes. The cream of these will get jobs, while the remaining graduates will end up doing some kind of sales jobs in other industries, he said.
Jayesh Sanghrajka, CFO, Infosys said during the earnings call recently that the company intends to recruit 20,000 freshers and has hired 12,000 of them during the first six months of the fiscal.
Echoing Karanth’s views, Kapil Joshi, CEO, IT Staffing, Quess Corp, said fresher hiring has dropped considerably over the last couple of years, owing to a shift in technology such as AI, automation, cybersecurity, and data science, among others.
“IT services companies no longer hire freshers in big numbers for coding, testing, and support roles compared to a few years ago. These companies are not hiring freshers owing to a lack of large contracts and visibility of long-term deals, which are margin-accretive,” Joshi said.
Other factors like geopolitical developments and moderation in attrition are also adding to a drop in fresher hiring, he added.