Infosys to hire 20,000 freshers in FY26 despite IT sector layoff concerns
Investments in AI, digital tech and reskilling will drive project deployment
Company trained 2.75 lakh staff and wage hikes, higher variable pay were implemented
Meanwhile, TCS lays off 12,000 staff due to skill mismatch and not AI automation
Indian IT firm Infosys has announced that they will stick to their plans of hiring freshers in 2025-26, amid concerns regarding layoff in the country’s IT sector. The company’s CEO, Salil Parekh announced that they have managed to stay ahead by investing in artificial intelligence (AI) and re-skilling its employees.
In a conversation with Times of India, Parekh said that Infosys will be sticking to its target of hiring 20,000 freshers in the financial year 2025-26 and it has also raised its lower end of the future guidance from 0% to 1% marking a new range of 1% to 3% in constant currency.
He further mentioned that the company has hired 17,000 people (gross) and additionally plans to bring 20,000 college students on board this year. As of now, the firm will focus on reskilling and AI, for which it has trained more than 2.75 lakh employees at different levels.
Will Deploy More People on New Projects
With the company's investments in digital and artificial intelligence and their focus on reskilling employees to boost efficiency, their approach will help the IT firm deploy more people on newer projects, the company’s CEO highlighted.
He said, “It's critical to invest. We made significant investments in digital and AI, building agents and language models, and reskilling employees. We also focused on internal efficiency to support these investments without major disruptions. This approach allows us to put more people on new projects.”
Infosys Salary Hike
As per a Mint report, Infosys recently implemented a wage hike but has not yet decided on the next pay hike for its employees, a top company executive said.
According to Infosys's Chief Financial Officer Jayesh Sanghrajka, the IT major has issued “higher” variable pay components to its employees in the quarter. However, with the recent wage hikes in focus, the company is yet to plan the next one.
He further said, “In the margin of this quarter, we had 100 basis points of impact on account of wage hike as well as the higher variable pay that we paid to our employees this quarter, so that's already done. Having done the wage hike very recently, you know, next one we'll have to decide when.”
Layoffs at TCS
India’s largest IT firm, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) announced a layoff for 12,000 employees last week. The job cuts will primarily affect middle and senior-grade workers, accounting for about 2% of the company’s 613,000-plus workforce. “The way we work is changing and the operating model is evolving,” said K Krithivasan, chief executive and managing director of the company, while confirming the layoffs.
Speaking to Moneycontrol, the company’s CEO also noted that the layoffs were not due to AI replacing jobs but due to a skill mismatch and the company’s inability to redeploy certain employees in its evolving business model.
