IT services company Infosys on Thursday said its headcount fell by 1,908 in the quarter ended June, reporting a decline for the sixth-straight quarter. The total headcount for the June quarter stood at 315,332, down from 336,294 in the previous quarter. On a year-on-year basis, it fell by 20,962. Infosys had seen a net reduction of 5,423 employees in the March quarter.
Jayesh Sanghrajka, chief financial officer at Infosys, said: “Last multiple quarters we have moved to agile hiring base. We hire freshers from on and off the campus. This quarter we had a 2,000 person net decline, which was lower than the previous quarters.” The attrition rate for June quarter on the last twelve-month basis saw a marginal increase to 12.7% from 12.6% in the previous quarter. “Our utilisation is already at 85%, so we have little headroom left. As we start seeing growth we will look at hiring,” he added.
The company is looking to hire 15,000 to 20,000 freshers in FY25, Sanghrajka said. The IT services giant had hired 11,900 employees in FY24, which was significantly lower than the over 50,000 freshers the company recruited the previous year.
Infosys is not alone, peers HCLTech and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) also saw a similar trend. HCLTech’s headcount decreased by 8,080 employees in the April-June quarter, but this decline includes approximately 7,398 employees lost due to the divestiture associated with State Street, HCLTech said. TCS added 5,452 employees on a net-to-net basis in April-June, reversing three straight quarters of decline. However, the overall headcount at the company dropped 1,759 sequentially.
LTIMindtree was an exception, adding 284 employees sequentially in the June quarter. Infosys reported a higher-than-expected earnings in the quarter ended June led by growth in its banking, financial, services and insurance (BFSI) vertical. The topline rose nearly 4% sequentially to 39,315 crore in April-June, but net profit fell 20% to6,368 crore. The company also surprised the Street by raising its sales forecast for the FY25 to 3-4% from 1-3% projected earlier.