India and America are not on the best of terms currently. Ever since US has imposed punishing tariffs on the Indian economy, the relations have soured. Well, usually the souring of relations between these two countries means that US Big-Tech firms would have slowed hirings in India. However, this is evidently not the case.
Despite the trade tensions between India and the US, major US tech companies like Meta, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, and Google have demonstrated a strong commitment to the Indian market. These firms have collectively hired over 30,000 new employees from India in the past year, marking the most significant 12-month hiring growth in India for these tech giants in the last three years.
What do the numbers say?
Based on the data from Xpheno, it is revealed that the FAAMNG {Facebook (Meta), Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Netflix, and Google (Alphabet)} group of companies and their affiliates saw a year-on-year increase of more than 30 per cent in new hires between August 2024 and August 2025. The previous hiring peak in 2022 saw 37,000 new hires, which is a 35 per cent annual growth – the surge was largely attributed to post-pandemic recruitment momentum.
Which job roles saw most hiring?
According to Kamal Karanth, Co-founder of Xpheno, most active job openings are for mid and senior-level roles in domains such as Engineering & IT, program management, and product management. The number of active job openings, however, remains moderate at about 5,200, which is still only 45-50 per cent of the peak hiring volumes seen in 2021-2022. Back then, open roles were consistently between 10,000 and 11,000.
Setting up bases to hire more Indian talent:
The long-term strategy to hire more Indian talent is also evident in their recent expansion in the country. In August, AI powerhouse OpenAI announced its first office India, which is set to be established in the capital city of New Delhi.
This expansion followed Microsoft’s lease of 2.65 lakh sq. ft. of office space in Hyderabad and Apple’s 10-year lease for office floors in Bengaluru worth over Rs 1,010 crore. Meta also opened a new office in Bengaluru recently, while Google unveiled ‘Ananta,’ which is one of its largest global campuses in the city.
Current hiring trend:
The current hiring trend is highly focused on capability-driven roles rather than broad-based job creation. Neeti Sharma, CEO of TeamLease Digital, noted that the hiring mix has shifted from “scale-based recruitment” to “capability-first hiring,” with a clear emphasis on building teams for strategic areas like AI, cloud computing, and cybersecurity.
