Infosys to hire 30,000 next fiscal, lowest in three years as company moves towards automation

BENGALURU: Infosys will hire 30,000 people in the next financial year, the lowest in the last three years, reflecting partly the company's growing emphasis on automation and productivity improvements. The number was first mentioned by CEO Vishal Sikka in an investor call earlier this week to discuss the acquisition of US automation company Panaya. Infosys subsequently confirmed the number to TOI.

In the first three quarters of this fiscal, Infosys made a gross addition of 38,915 people. By the end of the year, that number should be well over 40,000. Last year, it had hired 39,985 people, and in 2012-13 the gross addition was 37,036. That makes next year's hiring target the lowest in recent times, and it's a year in which Infosys expects its revenue growth to be higher than in the current year.

The actual additions to the workforce will be significantly lower, considering that many leave the company. The net addition in 2013-14 was just 3,717. This year, it had touched 9,233 by December. In the next fiscal, a 30,000 gross hire — combined with a conservative 16% annualized attrition rate estimate (the rate is currently at 20%) — would mean a net hiring of less than 3,000.

Automation is beginning to replace employees performing repetitive tasks, and Sikka has been the most vocal of Indian IT sector CEOs in advocating automation. Many IT processes are now repetitive and lend themselves to automation. In some cases, the systems have become so complicated that manual interfaces are highly inefficient. With machine learning and AI, the systems learn from their past mistakes and ensure they don't make those mistakes again. That further reduces the need for human intervention.

Noshir Kaka, MD of McKinsey India, recently said the decoupling of revenue from headcount had already begun in IT. "For the first $100 billion in revenue, 3 million people were added. Indian IT services revenues are on track to touch $225 billion by 2020, but will add less than 1 million people for the next $100 billion. About 50% of talent will have to be reskilled to be relevant," he said at a Nasscom event in Mumbai. Kaka's provocative presentation pointed out how machines will join the workforce impacting knowledge workers. "An algorithm gets a seat at the board," he said.

In 2013, Infosys tied up with IPsoft, the New York-based automation and machine learning company founded by Indian American Chetan Dube. The Panaya acquisition seeks to accelerate the automation move.