With the global market looking up slowly, IT companies have started hiring at a faster pace in India . While Cognizant Technologies will be hiring more than 12,000 people in 2010, Zensar Technologies will be hiring 800 this year.

The National Association of Software & Services Companies (Nasscom) had already estimated that direct employment during 2010-11 will grow by 4 per cent to cross 2.3 million mark.

R Chandrasekaran, president and managing director of Cognizant Technologies, said: “This year net recruitment will be much higher than last year. And we are expecting at least 20 per cent rise in revenue in 2010.” The company recruited 16,700 employees globally, while 75% of the recruitment was in India .

The company is targeting a turnover of $3.29 billion in 2010, up from $3.27 billion last year. At present, the company has around 78,000 people working in India .

According to Chandrasekaran, the hiring will go up backed by the growth in Asia-Pacific business. ?We have made significant investments in Japan and Australia . We are also looking at the Latin American market including Brazil and Argentina,? he said on the sidelines of a seminar organised by the CII. The company is also expanding its services portfolio and beefing up consultancy services.

Large companies in US, from where 78 per cent of Cognizant’s revenue comes, decide on their budgets during January-February period.

Pune-based Zensar Technologies, which has recruited 300 professionals in January this year, plans to hire 800 more during 2010. Zensar?s vice chairman and CEO Ganesh Natarajan said with an order book size of $700 million, to be executed over next five years, the company will keep on hiring professionals. It has 5,200 people in its pay roll.

Zensar, which is talking to a few companies for possible acquisition, is also taking steps to reduce attrition level.

A few weeks back, the country?s biggest software exporter, Tata Consultancy Services Ltd, said the company has plans to hire 30,000 people in 2010-11.

Industry lobby group Nasscom estimated that 90,000 were hired by IT companies this year, way below 200,000 a year back. While Infosys is learnt to be hiring 24,000 from the earlier 20,000 in this fiscal, India ‘s third largest company Wipro plans to add 7,500 freshers during the next fiscal.