US-based IT services firm Cognizant Technology Solutions has announced that it plans to hire 20,000 freshers in 2025. The firm ended Q1 with around 336,300 employees, most of them in India. Its headcount dropped by 500 sequentially and by 8,300 y-o-y.
The firm’s attrition rose by 2.7 percentage points to 15.8% on a trailing twelve-month basis. Utilisation fell by 3 percentage points to 85%.
“The 20,000 freshers will now shape our pyramid because we are now getting a lot of managed services work. So, that will start to accelerate our headcount,” CEO Ravi Kumar S said. “Now that organic growth has come back, it’s a good time to re-baseline the pyramid,” he added.
A pyramid structure in IT sector refers to more junior employees and fewer senior ones, helping reduce salary costs.
The fresher hiring announcement comes as Indian IT peers avoid sharing exact hiring targets for FY26 due to demand uncertainty. The top five IT companies are expected to add 80,000–84,000 IT jobs in FY26.