On the sunny side, GCCs did well, hiring far more than IT services for the first time ever. The industry saw a net addition of 60,000 people in the current fiscal, taking the total tally to 5.4 million. Nasscom did not break this up, but given that big IT services companies are seeing a decline in headcount, much of the net addition would be on account of GCCs. In 2022-23, GCCs had added 2.8 lakh employees, taking their talent base to over 1.6 million.
“What we are seeing is a correction due to over-hiring during Covid… We are also seeing hiring for roles in AI, data, cloud, and cybersecurity,” Nasscom president Debjani Ghosh said on Friday.
Even during FY21, which was marred by pandemic-related sharp declines in growth, the Indian tech sector added 1.3 lakh employees. In the following fiscal, it hired 4.5 lakh freshers – the highest addition in a single year.
Nasscom said 53 new GCCs were added in 2023. Recently, UK-based financial services major Lloyds Banking Group opened a new technology centre in Hyderabad. It plans to grow its talent base to 600 technologists by year-end. Last year, Australia’s largest bank – National Australia Bank – set up the NAB Innovation Centre India with nearly 1,000 employees. When asked if GCCs have captured India’s tech narrative, Ghosh said it’s a model of coexistence because there is enough differentiation in the work that GCCs are doing, and the work tech services companies are doing.
“Of course, there’s some level of overlap that was bound to happen. The decline in the growth rate in services is not due to GCCs, but what I talked about… at the client end, there was uncertainty and decision-making took longer,” she said.