Staffing firms are seeing a surge in hiring from IT firms working with banking, financial services and insurance clients
India’s information technology (IT) and IT-enabled services (ITeS) sector is expected to see more hiring of contractual employees as the end of the coronavirus-induced lockdown leads to a gradual rise in demand, staffing firms said.
While in general, contractual employees are usually the first ones to come under the scanner during a downturn, IT-ITeS firms typically hire them to suit their project-oriented work.
According to Indian Staffing Federation (ISF), out of 4 million IT-ITeS workforce, about 500,000 were contractual or temporary workers as of 2018. That’s expected to grow at an average annual pace of 13% to 720,000 workers by 2021.
You might also be interested to read: Govt Considering Easing Tax Rules To Promote Startups, Says Official
Since March, hiring at most top IT firms has been subdued as a bulk of their clients are from the US and Europe, which have been ravaged by the pandemic. But this is about to change as a recovery is beginning in parts of Europe.
“Germany is already in its last phase of lockdown… Spain and Italy are also opening up slowly; so during June-July, for IT majors with clients in Europe, a lot of this customer base will come back, and the lost time will need to be caught up with by deploying new people,” said Lohit Bhatia, president, ISF. “Once the recession is over, contractual hiring will be seen as a credible mode of employment because of the flexibility it offers.”
Source: livemint
