IT major HCL Technologies is aiming to hire around 20,000 employees over the next two quarters as the company sees demand returning. The statement came as HCL Technologies reported its October-December (Q3) results on Friday. In Q3, HCL Tech saw attrition levels in the IT Services segment come down to 10.2% with the company hiring 6,597 employees, of which 4,022 were freshers.
C Vijayakumar, CEO and President of HCL Technologies reportedly said that there is a good demand pipeline, especially in terms of deals, so the company is looking to hire both freshers and lateral talent to fulfil the demand.
In the quarter gone by, HCL won 13 transformational deals across industry verticals, including Life Sciences and Healthcare, Technology and Financial Services. It also crossed $10 billion in revenues in 2020 on the back of a strong deal pipeline and good order booking.
This demand, Vijayakumar said, could lead to around 20,000 people being hired in the next 4-6 months, of which about 85% will be offshore, and the other 15% onshore or at client locations.
The company currently has 1,59,682 employees at the end of December 31, 2020.
Addressing the media post the announcement of results, Apparao VV, the Chief HR officer of HCL said that there was a difficult in hiring freshers in the first two quarters due to the COVID-19 pandemic situation. However, the company is now ramping up its hiring. Having added 4,022 freshers in Q3, the company added 6,480 freshers this year as of December 31, 2020. Over the next three months, the company plans to add another 5,000 freshers, Apparao said.
The company has also been increasing its localisation in the US, which is hiring US citizens instead of foreign nationals. Localisation in the US stands at about 69.8% for HCL.
HCL posted a 31% increase in net profit to Rs 3,982 crore and 6.4% increase in revenue to Rs 19,302 crore in Q3.
With offices slowly beginning to return to work, HCL said that as of December 6.9% of its workforce in India has been coming to office, and the company is seeing this number gradually increase.
“The technology sector is in the midst of a massive digitization wave, with more global enterprises embracing digital transformation to address the disruption of these unprecedented times. Technology has been a key enabler during the pandemic, and as we stand at the cusp of the next phase of technological innovation, it is vital that we draw inspiration from each other’s strengths and offer back our own to create a positive impact,” said Shiv Nadar, Chief Strategy Officer, HCL Technologies Ltd.