In the last fifteen days, at least four Global Capacity Centres (GCCs) have either announced new centres in India or expanded their operations here. GCCs in India are on a hiring spree and have hired about 28,000 employees in the just concluded quarter, and experts say they will hire around 150,000 employees this fiscal.
However, with IT service companies being slack in their hiring, the record intake by GCCs would still fall short by 50% of the overall IT industry hiring in India.
Sunil C, CEO of TeamLease Digital, said, “While we have seen large number of GCCs are coming to India and hiring, their numbers are still lower compared to mass hiring that is usually being done by IT service companies.”
“The trend till last year has been that 70% of overall hiring was done by IT services companies and 30% by GCCs. However, it’s shifting more towards GCCs because of two reasons – IT services hiring has dropped to almost 5% and GCC contribution has increased to around 45%. Overall, we still see a 50% drop in the IT hiring numbers as the volume drop from IT services could never be compensated by GCCs”, Sunil said.
He added that as per their survey, GCCs will add 40,000-50,000 in Q2 and Q4 each that generally see more hiring in the IT industry. If the second half plays out well, this number can reach even 200,000 this fiscal.
As per a report by Xpheno – a specialist staffing company, the gross hiring numbers, as a sum of replacement hiring and net additions were – 130,000, 360,000 and 440,000 for fiscal 2021, 2022, 2023, respectively.
Kamal Karanth, co-founder, Xpheno, said, “The Q1FY2024 ending June 2023 saw IT services headcount remaining largely stagnant due to the degrowth among the bellwethers, while the GCC witnessed 25,000-28,000 net additions.”
Karanth added that the talent action among GCCs has been positive in comparison to the IT services cohort. However, net addition remains below the projected growth trajectory for the GCCs cohort. The projected net headcount addition of GCCs for FY2024 is Rs 150,000-200,000. The slightly lower than projected net addition in Q1 ending June 2023 adds pressure on the remaining quarters to compensate.”
Saurabh Mathur, partner, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu India, said, “The GCC sector currently contributes a revenue of $60 billion, which is expected to reach $75-80 billion within 4-5 years. India is expected to have over 1,900 GCCs, employing 2 million people and earning $60 billion.”