Freshers in IT get hefty salary hike!

Bengaluru: As the Indian Information Technology (IT) industry witnesses a hot talent war, the salaries of freshers witnessed 16-20 per cent uptick after nearly a decade of stagnancy.

According to HR professionals and industry experts, Indian IT firms are now providing a salary of around Rs4 lakh-Rs4.5 lakh (CTC-Cost to Company) to freshers as compared to about Rs3.5 lakh two years ago.

"Freshers' salaries have increased by around 16-20 per cent in the post-pandemic period. This hike is being given to both on campus and off campus hired candidates. Similarly, we have also seen bit of rise in salaries for tier-I colleges also (like IITs, NITs)," Neeti Sharma, co-founder and president, TeamLease Edtech, told Bizz Buzz.

"The demand has increased across the IT industry, be it for freshers or laterals. For attracting good talent, companies are raising the salaries. However, every fresher is not getting the hike. Rather, candidates with technical skillsets relevant to organisations are receiving the hikes," she added.

According to HR experts, apart from monetary compensations, companies are also providing many non-monetary perks to attract talent at this point of time.

Freshers' salary had stagnated in the last one decade despite IT companies' increased dependence on them for getting new talent. Though salaries of experienced hands have increased many a time in the past, most IT firms had not moved the needle in the basic salary front for freshers.

However, things have changed in the last one year as companies struggle with rising employee attrition numbers with most firms reporting 20 per cent employee attrition. Also, captives of global companies and startups are paying double the salary of what the Indian IT firms are paying to fresh engineering graduates.

As per management commentary, the top four Indian IT firms- TCS, Infosys, HCL Technologies and Wipro- are planning to hire around 160,000 fresh engineering graduates in the current financial year. This is seen as the measure to tide over the supply-side issues faced by the companies due to rising attrition.

"Salaries of freshers have definitely increased given the demand for talent. Though base salary has not increased, candidates are also able to get Rs 6 lakh per annum if they complete certain skillsets relevant to their employer. Given the salaries offered by the startups and GICs (global inhouse centres), IT firms are also trying to create a long-term career path for these fresh graduates apart from compensations," said Pareekh Jain, an IT outsourcing advisor and Founder of Pareekh Consulting.

Interestingly, no IT company in India is announcing the hikes given to freshers in the last one year. "There could be two reasons. Firstly, there is no blanket hike given to all candidates. Secondly, they may be of the hope that salaries will come down to previous levels as the demand for talent eases in coming years," said a source working in HR sector.