HCL Tech reported 6,440 net adds to its total headcount, followed by Tech Mahindra with 5,446 employees | Photo Credit: REUTERS

IT firms HCL Technologies, Tech Mahindra overtook industry giant Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) in terms of net adds amidst a sectoral pivot towards a productivity-led workforce approach.  

In the September-ending quarter, HCL Tech reported 6,440 net adds to its total headcount, followed by Tech Mahindra with 5,446 employees and lastly TCS with 4,258 employees. While much of this growth was fresher-led, experts foresee demand-triggered hiring to become more common, with recruitment surging around major projects and slowing as companies improve utilisation and automate delivery.  

“The workforce pyramid is changing with large firms’ impact coming in late. Unlike earlier times when hiring strategy was unidirectional, there are a lot of specific individual ways in which aspirants are hired. Profitability of a project is lot more important now,” said Yugal Joshi, Partner, Everest Group. 

Paradox

He called it a paradoxical or dichotomous approach by companies towards workforce where on the one hand they say AI will do entry level work and they will hire experienced forward deployed engineers but still focus on entry-level hirings to manage spends. 

What’s interesting in this quarter is the manner in which companies have adapted their hiring strategy. TCS, once the mass-hirer of the country is now taking a constrained demand-focused approach to headcount as per management comments. Tech Mahindra has reiterated interest in campus hiring for the second consecutive quarter. Even Wipro, that reported a reduced total headcount, said that it will ramp up hiring in coming quarters considering the heavier second half of the financial year.  

“In this year, this quarter, if you look at it, first half, we didn’t go on campus. So, that’s the thing. We will be going to campuses to hire given the volume growth in the second half. So I think it’ll even out as we move forward. We’re also driving productivity from AI projects,” said Saurabh Govil, Chief Human Resources Officer at Wipro. 

Uneven Hiring

Such demand-triggered hiring is likely to become more common, especially around major projects and slow down as companies improve utilisation and automate delivery, as per Sarbojit Mallick, co-founder, Instahyre.  

“Campus hiring may recover without returning to its earlier scale. Annual hiring targets are not guarantees of timely offers or onboarding, making actual joining numbers a more meaningful indicator than recruitment announcements,” said Mallick. 

Meanwhile, Ganesh S Padmanabhan, VP, Recruitment Business at CIEL HR, expects hiring to may remain uneven, with larger intakes around project starts and campus onboarding schedules, followed by periods of consolidation.  

“Companies can recruit freshers while reducing their overall workforce because they are also changing their skill mix and deployment models. Entry-level opportunities will remain, but employers will increasingly value learning agility, practical exposure and the ability to work with AI tools,” said Padmanabhan. 

Hiring in the Q2 was led by campus hires since many of the required skills around knowledge of traditional and modern AI tech ecosystem and domain/industry can be found among semi-lateral and/or campus graduates or even subcontractors, as per Sandeep Gogia, MD, Tech & Digital, Equirus Capital.

“This may impact margins in medium to long term as well unless you start replacing them with internal skills by making relevant hiring and / or by reskilling existing manpower,” said Gogia.

Greyhound Research stated that selective intake is the apt operating assumption while project start-offs and deployable skills remain uneven.  

“A large joining batch followed by a quieter quarter is consistent with a scheduled intake. Repeated delays after candidates have accepted offers raise a different question about the employer’s commitments. The distinction rests on actual joining and assignment to work,” said Sanchit Vir Gogia, Chief Analyst and Founder at Greyhound Research. 

Published on October 18, 2026