Fat pay cheques melting in IT

Diverging Moves

- Demand for skill set and salary hikes moving in opposite directions

- Ongoing layoffs by Indian startups, global techiants impacted salary hikes

- As many as 25,000 techies lost jobs globally

- Over 20,000 staffers lost jobs in Indian startup space alone

Bengaluru: Salary expectations of engineers in the IT industry have come down sharply though demand for talent continues to remain robust in niche skill areas. According to industry officials and HR experts, salary hike expectations have come down to pre-pandemic level of 20-50 per cent than 50-100 per cent that candidates used to expect at the peak of hiring last year.

"As far as wage hike is concerned, both employees and employers are quite rational (on this aspect)," Supaul Chanda, vice-president of technology recruitment firm Experis of Manpower Group told Bizz Buzz.

According to sources in the HR industry, employers are not chasing candidates as they used to, thus bringing down the salary hikes. Currently, anywhere between 20-50 per cent salary hike is considered good as compared to a range of 50-100 per cent that candidates used to ask during last year.

Ongoing layoffs by Indian startups and global technology giants have tampered expectations about compensation in recent months. While more than 20,000 staffers had lost jobs owing to Indian startups firing people, this number is more than 25,000 globally with global giants like Meta, Amazon, Twitter, & Microsoft cutting down headcount.

Despite rising layoffs, demand for talent in niche skill sets remains intact, said industry officials.

"Application services, digital engineering, customer experience and related skills remain in high demand. These are the areas where Indian IT services companies are investing in terms of talent. So, if talent comes from other (laid off) sources, it is going to help the Indian IT services providers," Global IT research firm ISG's principal analyst Mrinal Rai said.

With global technology giants conducting mass layoffs, many Indian professionals both in India and abroad had lost their jobs. Many of these professionals are looking at Indian companies to be absorbed. Moreover, professionals, who have lost their jobs in the US, are considering returning to India owing to H1B visa issues. In this context, many IT firms are mulling to hire these talents at a salary that is more comparable to Indian standards.

Meanwhile, cooling down of hiring market is indicating that attrition level is slowly stabilizing for Indian service providers. For the last one-and-a-half-years, most IT firms are struggling with more than 20 per cent attrition level, which is likely to come down in coming quarters.

As far as wage hike is concerned, both employees and employers are quite rational on this aspect

- Supaul Chanda, V-P, Experis of Manpower Group