Five mid cap IT firms increased their net headcount during the October-December quarter, despite it being traditionally a weak quarter for the sector. The top four firms saw a decline of more than 21,000 in their employee headcount during the period.
Out of the five mid cap firms — Tata Elxsi and Cyient DET (Digital, Engineering and Technology) — added to their headcount for the fourth quarter in a row. While Tata Elxsi added 1,614 employees to reach a total of 13,221 at the end of Q3, Cyient DET added a total of 985 employees, thus reaching a total staff strength of 15,678 at the end of the December quarter.
Birlasoft’s headcount went for the third consecutive quarter during which it added more than 160 employees to reach a total count of 12,356.
The other two to have increased headcounts are Persistent Systems and Tata Technologies. While Persistent Systems added 494 in Q3, with its total strength going up to 23,336, Tata Technologies’ total headcount saw a marginal jump of 172 to reach a total of 12,623.
While many IT companies struggled to improve their utilisation ratio, these five successfully navigated the furloughs, and even brought down their attrition rates.
Analysts said some some mid cap IT firms are hiring because they did not over hire in the last three years, and hence their employee to revenue metric is more in balance, unlike the larger firms which went on an hiring overdrive earlier.
The smaller firms are also not seeing the same level of decline in discretionary spends as their larger counterparts have projected.