MNC software firms step up hiring in India

At a time when top Indian tech firms including TCS, Infosys and Wipro plan to slow down their linear growth by hiring less number of people, multinational software companies such as IBM, Accenture and Cap Gemini continue to hire more software professionals in order to expand their offshore capabilities. Despite lower growth in revenues from top markets such as the US and Europe, Indian offshore vendors are seeing an attrition rate of 11-13%.

“Our attrition rate is still around 11%, which is not significantly down,” said Pratik Kumar, executive VP-HR, Wipro. “We find that smaller captives operating in niche areas, apart from MNCs, are still hiring,” he added.

Captive organisations of large enterprises in the US and the UK are seeking to increase their offshore teams in order to lower their operational costs. Tesco, the world’s second-biggest retailer, plans to add a few hundreds more professionals to its existing team of around 3,000 employees at the Bangalore centre.

“We want this centre to become the engineering hub for us, and there is a lot of scope for scale expansion,” Mike McNamara, director (operations and information technology) at Tesco told ET in an interview earlier this month. The retailer saves around $60 million every year by outsourcing to India. Captives, such as Tesco, are seeking to hire professionals with specialised skills, which is opening newer avenues for experienced workers.

“Openings in the IT industry are becoming more specialised and specific with people looking at roles which are very clearly aligned with their skills,” said Madhu Rao, country head, Allegis India, which is a part of the $5-billion Allegis Group.

In another instance, Atos Origin – the European IT major – has plans to double its workforce in India from the existing level of 3,300 to 6,000 in the next one-year. Accenture has already announced that it would be increasing its India headcount from the current level of 37,000 to 50,000 in a year.

GC Jayaprakash, principal consultant at Stanton Chase International, said movement among IT pros is happening more with the laterals and those looking at moving to a different location. Today, openings in the IT industry are more to do with specific skills and are for professionals who have experience of 5-7 years.

Agencies

Barclays to offshore 66 jobs to India

Banking major Barclays has announced plans to offshore 66 jobs from its site in Poole, Dorset, to India, sparking protests by bank employees and worker unions.

The bank said the redundancies were part of 1,100 job losses at Poole announced last year, alongside a decision to farm out some work overseas.

Finance union Unite, however, said that the scope of the job cuts was changing and that the 66 job losses were new.

Unite official Steve Pantak said, "The latest job cuts by Barclays in Poole are very alarming for us. The 66 roles are to be offshored to India. Unite believes that there is now real doubt about the future of Barclays in the Poole area.

"The decision earlier in the year to cancel the new building, coupled with the accelerated winding down of jobs in Barclays House, leads Unite to believe that there is a real threat to the future of all staff in Poole."

Pantak called on the bank to give solid assurances on its "commitment to Poole and the remaining jobs in Barclays House."

Earlier this week, Barclays said that it was cutting more than 100 jobs in Cardiff under plans to outsource work in a department that deals with accounts when a customer dies.

Source: Agencies