End of India’s IT jobs boom as clients cut costs, focus shifts to skill depth in new AI, automation era

India’s IT industry, once the country’s most reliable and prolific job generator, has halted large-scale hiring. In a staggering reversal, the nation’s top five IT companies added just 17 net employees in the first nine months of this financial year. That’s a collapse from nearly 18,000 jobs created over the same period a year earlier, signalling a decisive shift in how the sector operates.

“Net new hiring will be very much lower now,” says Pareekh Jain, CEO, Pareekh Consulting. He adds: “There will be new hiring, but it will replace attrition and retirement. Net new hiring will be marginal. The companies will go forward with more or less stable headcount, the way it happens in other industries.”