TCS aims to hire 50,000 in FY 2012-13

Infosys has promoted another 4,000 people taking the total number of promotions this year to 20,000, effective July 1, 2012. This is about over 13% of the company's total strength of 1,51,151 as on June 30.

"We have done the promotions and progressions as we talked last time, we have done 20,000 across the corporations," Infosys CEO S D Shibulal said.

The company had earlier said it would review the wage hike decision depending on the company performance. However, with lower-than-expected earnings and forecast, in dollar term, the company will not lift its freeze on salary hike any time soon.

Infosys and its subsidiaries added 9,236 (gross) people in the first quarter of FY'13, while the net addition during the period stood at 1,157 employees. The rate of attrition during the quarter was marginally higher at 14.9% against 14.7% in the January-March quarter of 2011-12.

"Typically, attrition in the first quarter (of a fiscal) goes up because people tend to go for higher studies. About 30% of our attrition was due to this reason," Shibulal said.

Meanwhile the country's lead tech player Tata Consultancy Services has continued to hire to support business growth. With campus trainees joining the company from the beginning of July-September quarter, lateral hiring accounted for 75% of total hiring in Q1. There was a total gross addition of 13,831 people (net addition of 4,962), taking the total employee strength of 243,545 on a consolidated basis.

The utilization rate (excluding trainees) was at 81.3% and that including trainees was 72.3%. The attrition rate (last twelve months-LTM) was 12.0%.

"We have been able to effectively increase our retention rate in the first quarter to over 88% and increase our utilization rates further. The on-boarding of current year's trainees has begun," said Ajoy Mukherjee, executive vice-president and global head, human resources.

TCS has a target to hire 50,000 people this year while Infosys will hire 35,000 people, which includes 13,000 jobs for its BPO operations.

Dell hires UK staff to grow enterprise services

Dell plans to hire more UK staff for its enterprise services division by the end of June 2011.

In the first quarter of 2011, Dell hired 100 staff for its UK offices. Dell had previously hired 190 UK staff in the preceding two quarters. A third of all new recruits were hired for its enterprise and technical solutions and services business division.

Stephen Murdoch, vice-president and general manager of EMEA large enterprise at Dell, confirmed the company was growing its UK team as part of a plan to hire another 800 people across the EMEA region this quarter.

"We are open for business for the best talent in the industry, particularly in enterprise services and solutions. Our hiring plan reflects confidence in our strategy and our desire to hire staff to meet the growing demand we see from our customers in the region," he said.

Murdoch added its intelligent data management service was important for recruitment, as was next-generation hybrid cloud building.

"We're expanding our solutions and services team, bringing in new technology and expertise throughacquisition as well as launching new enterprise-led solutions," added Murdoch.

In its Dell's Q1 fiscal 2012 year results, its enterprise solutions and services accounted for 30% of total $15bn sales. Enterprise services sales to large businesses increased 5% to $4.4bn.

Dell is also investing $1bn in cloud computing servicesin 2011, including UK-based datacentres.

Infotech to hire 1,500 for Kakinada SEZ

Infotech Enterprises Ltd will recruit 1,500 for its upcoming Special Economic Zone (SEZ) at Kakinada. The company targets to complete work on the 1,000-seater facility in 18 months. “We are going to complete it by December 2012 end. It is going to work for two shifts,” Mr B.V.R. Mohan Reddy, Chairman and Managing Director, told Business Line.

The company will spend Rs 25 crore on the project. The first phase would be ready in 90 days and the second phase in June 2012. “By then, we would have completed 600 seats, employing 1,200 people. The remaining capacity would be built by the end of 2012,” he said.

The five-acre facility would attend to Infotech's customers in oil and gas sector.

Foundation stone for the facility was laid on Monday by Mr M.M. Pallam Raju, Minister of State for Defence, and Mr Ponnala Lakshmaiah, Andhra Pradesh Minister for Information Technology and Communications.

“The facility will have a built-up area of one lakh sf. It would be our sixth facility in India - two in Hyderabad, one each in Bangalore, Noida and Visakhapatnam. This new facility in Kakinada is in line with our growth and expansion strategy to create facilities in SEZs and in tier-ii cities,” Mr Mohan Reddy said.

The company already had a facility in Kakinada with 450 employees working there. “We will move all of these into the new facility,” he said.

Mahindra Satyam to hire 18,000 in FY'12

IT firm Mahindra Satyam said it plans to hire about 18,000 people during this fiscal. 
"We have plans of hiring about 18,000 people this year (FY'12). Over 5,000 are from campuses and the rest are from lateral hiring or recruitment of experienced hands," Mahindra Satyam Head Recruitment and Media Sridhar Maturi told PTI. 

At the end of the third quarter (October-December period), Mahindra Satyam's headcount stood at 28,832, an increase of 764 personnel from 28,068 employees on September 30, 2010. 

Maturi further added, "The campus hiring will be predominantly in India and the lateral hiring is from across the world." 

The company has its development and delivery centres in the US, Canada, Brazil, the UK, Hungary,Egypt, UAE, India, China, Malaysia, Singapore and Australia by which the company serves numerous clients, including several Fortune 500 companies. 

Mahindra Satyam, formerly Satyam Computer Services , in September last year had announced its first audited financial results for 2009-10 after its founder B Ramalinga Raju admitted to multi-crore accounting fraud in January 2009. 

In November 2010, it announced its first quarterly result for the April-June quarter, the first time after disclosure of its July-September 2008 quarter earnings. 

The company's former chairman and founder Ramalinga Raju had in January 2009 confessed to the about Rs 14,000 crore scam wherein the company's profits were overstated and its assets falsified. 

Tech Mahindra bought Satyam in April 2009, which since then is operating as an independent company. 

Shares of Mahindra Satyam today closed at Rs 74.20 on the BSE, up 1.44 per cent from the previous close.

TCS plans to recruit 60,000 this fiscal

Tata Consultancy Services plans to hire 60,000 employees at a gross level in fiscal 2011-12, said Mr Ajoy Mukherjee, Vice-President and Head of Global Human Resources.

Though, this is 9,000 less than the gross hiring numbers for the fiscal gone by, company officials do not see it as a reflection of a slide in demand.

“Last year, around the same time we had expected to hire 50,000 for 2010-11, but ultimately hired 69,234. The numbers may appear conservative at the beginning of the year, but these could be upped if the demand environment continues to be robust,” said Mr Phiroz Vandrevala, Executive Director and Global Head of Corporate Affairs.

CAMPUS RECRUIT

Though majority of the hiring will be in India, the company will also scale up employment in the US, the UK, besides other overseas geographies.

Of the proposed 60,000 new faces, almost half will come from the campus. The company has already made 37,396 offers to engineering students across 343 campuses.

“For the campus offers that we have given out, we expect a joining ratio of around 70 per cent,” said Mr Mukherjee.

The campus recruits will start joining the Tata group company starting the second quarter of the current fiscal.

Majority of the 69,000 gross hirings made last year were for the company's delivery centres in India. During the quarter gone by, TCS made gross employee additions of 19,324 and net additions of 11,700.

TCS is on course to become the first Indian IT company to have more than 2 lakh employees. Its employee account, as on March 31, was 1,98,614.

ATTRITION, A CONCERN

Attrition continued to remain a concern for the country's largest software exporter. While its BPO unit reported churn of 25.49 per cent, the IT services business recorded churn of 13.13 per cent, thereby taking overall attrition to 14.4 per cent.

“BPO attrition is the highest at our centres in Latin America because the hirings generally tend to be for a fixed term on a per project basis. Even employees there prefer this model of engagement,” said Mr Mukherjee.

NYSE-listed WNS Global Services, which is the only pure play BPO company to have announced earnings till now, had reported attrition of around 43 per cent

Firstsource To Recruit 500 In Karnataka

Firstsource Solutions, a leading global BPO services provider, today said that it would hire over 500 customer service associates at its Hubli center. These associates will service the customers of two of India's leading telecom service providers, a press release issued here said. "We have been one of the pioneers to have recognised the potential and talent in smaller cities in India. We are committed to contribute to the growth of smaller cities by expanding our reach in the country and generating employment across," the company's EVP and Head of Asia Business Unit, Sanjay Venkataraman, said. The Firstsource center in Hubli started with 200 employees in 2007 and now plans to expand the employee-base to over 700 people, he said. "We plan to hire fresh graduates or undergraduates with work experience who are well-versed in English, Hindi and Kannada. The hiring will take place over the next 2-3 months.With this planned expansion, Firstsource's employee count in Hubli will exceed 700 and in India will surpass 20,000," Venkataraman said.

Infosys to hire 45,000 people this fiscal

“This (financial) year, we said 40,000 people in last quarter, but recruited 43,000 people. Next year (2012), we are looking at recruiting 45,000 people,” said Mr S. Gopalakrishnan, CEO and Managing Director.

“We have made 26,000 offers at campus for FY12,” Mr T.V. Mohandas Pai, Member of the Board and Head - Human Resource Development and Education & Research, said in a statement.

“Spark reached out to 1,87,000 students during the year and Campus-Connect touched 33,047 students. We have brought attrition down to normal levels and substantially improved our investments on people,” Mr Pai added.

During the quarter, Infosys and its subsidiaries added 8,930 employees (gross) and net addition was 3,041. Till date, the company has a workforce of 1,30,820 people.

Indin IT industry to hire 2.25 lakh in 2011: Deloitte

The Indian IT industry will add over 2.25 lakh employees in 2011 and will clock revenues of USD 71.7 billion by the end of the year, consulting firm Deloitte has said.

Revenues from the information technology and business process outsourcing industry will reach USD 71.7 billion for 2011 and account for 5.8 per cent of the country's GDP, the firm said in its Technology, Media and Telecommunications Predictions for 2011.
The total number of employees working in the IT/ITeS (IT enabled services) sector will grow to 22.3 lakh this year, which translates into the addition of 2.26 lakh personnel, it said, adding that an additional 80 lakh people will get employment indirectly from the sector.

TCS to hire 50,000 in FY-2012

Tata Consultancy Service (TCS), India's top software services exporter, is seeing good demand for outsourcing services across sectors and expects client spends to be better in fiscal 2012, its chief executive said.

N Chandrasekaran, who is also the managing director of TCS, said IT outsourcing demand in Europe was recovering but was "slightly behind the curve", while outlook for North America, its largest exports market, remained strong.

"What I see on the ground is the spend is increasing. Fiscal 2012 will be a better year...better for growth," Chandrasekaran told reporters on Monday, adding he expected pricing to move up as demand for outsourcing increases.

TCS, whose clients include Citigroup and General Electric, has not seen any business impact from the unrest in Middle East and North Africa, he said.

Chandrasekaran also said the company would recruit as many or slightly less than about 50,000 it hired last year.

In January, TCS posted a market beating 30-percent rise in quarterly profit as it saw the highest client additions in seven quarters.

Demand for services offered by TCS and rivals Infosys and Wipro are seen rising, but a firmer rupee, rising wages, macroeconomic uncertainties and intensifying competition from global firms such as IBM and Accenture are key risks for the sector.

Last month, TCS said it expects to garner $1 billion revenue over five years by providing technology solutions to small-and-medium business units, an area where its revenue now is 'practically negligible.'

Shares of the company closed 2.27 percent lower on Monday at Rs 1108.75.

You tube to increase staff by 30 %

YouTube, the popular video site owned by Google Inc, said that it is adding 200 jobs, boosting its staff by more than 30 per cent in its biggest hiring year.

In a blog posting, the company also said more than 36 hours of video are uploaded to its site every minute, with videos viewed over 2 billion times a day.

Youtube, with about 650 employees, said most of the new jobs will be at its San Bruno, California headquarters, but there are also overseas openings in cities including Milan, St. Petersburg, Tokyo and Zurich. The jobs range from advertising sales to engineering.

Google bought YouTube in 2006 for $1.65 billion but the search giant has never separated out financial data to show whether the video site is contributing meaningfully to Google's profits.

Google to double manpower in Latin America

Google Inc, the world's biggest Internet-search company, is opening new offices in Latin America and boosting staffing levels by 50 per cent to capitalise on its fastest-growing region. 
Revenue from Latin America surged 80 per cent last year, outpacing every other market, Vice President Dennis Woodside said in an interview at the company's Buenos Aires office. Google, which has about 500 people in the region, has opened branches in Santiago, Lima and Bogota to take advantage of the growth, he said. 
"What we are seeing is the Internet coming into its own in all the Latin American markets," said Woodside, who handles sales for the Americas, including the US "There are 650 million people in the region, and a lot of them are really coming online for the first time. Our business in Latin America is just booming." 
Google is seeking new growth areas to offset a maturing US market and a diminished presence in China, the world's most populous country. The US and the UK accounted for about 60 per cent of the $29.3 billion in total revenue last year, most of which was generated by ads. Google, based in Mountain View, California, doesn't say what portion came from Latin America. 
Google rose $3.36 to $613.40 yesterday in Nasdaq Stock Market trading. The shares have climbed 3.3 per cent this year. 

Intel plans to add 4,000 workers this year

Intel seeks 'permanent, highly skilled employees,' primarily for positions in research and development.

Intel will hire 4,000 workers in the United States this year, primarily in product development and research and development, the company said on Friday.
The company seeks to hire "permanent, highly skilled employees," Intel CEO Paul Otellini said during a speech in Hillsboro, Ore., where U.S. President Barack Obama toured a microprocessor factory. Intel currently has about 82,000 employees.
[ Also on InfoWorld.com: Meanwhile, the tech industry continues to look for new ways to increase the H-1B visa program. | Get solid advice on your tech career from Bob Lewis' Advice Line newsletter. ]
Obama is currently visiting the West Coast as part of an effort to promote innovation to maintain U.S. competitiveness. Obama has met leaders of top IT companies, including Apple CEO Steve Jobs and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerburg, as part of the tour.
"These new employees will focus on areas that span the exploration of new materials to create even smaller transistors, to products that we believe will transform the way that health care and education are delivered, to 'future technologies' that involve augmented reality and computers that can read minds, or at least anticipate your needs," Otellini said.
Intel also announced it would invest around $5 billion to build a chip plant in Chandler, Ariz. The plant will be dedicated to making chips for PCs, consumer electronics, and mobile devices, Intel said in a statement. Construction of the plant will begin in the middle of this year and should be completed in 2013, Intel said.
The $5 billion commitment is in addition to Intel's investment of between $6 billion and $8 billion to manufacture new chips for PCs, smartphones, consumer electronics, and embedded devices, which the company announced in October last year. Those funds will go toward building a plant in Oregon, and to upgrading factories to make chips using the new 22-nanometer process. Such chips would be faster and more power-efficient than the company's current PC chips made using the 32-nm process.
Intel at the time said the $6 billion to $8 billion investment would help create approximately 6,000 to 8,000 construction jobs in the United States during the construction phase, and would eventually create up to 1,000 highly skilled and high-wage manufacturing jobs.