Techies on tenterhooks as second round downsizing begins
-Hiring freeze in firms across the city
-Only one skill won’t fetch you job anymore
-No expectations of hikes; bonuses being slashed
-Techies being realigned to various divisions
NAVEENA GHANATE
Hyderabad
Amid global recessionary trends and fears, Hyderabad-based techies are on tenterhooks as they are being haunted by the idea of further rounds of layoffs. While many city-based companies resorted to heavy retrenchment in January, the process has been continuing with no signs of abatement.
This has been the case not just in IT sector, but also in sectors like Life Sciences and Pharma, Banking and Financial services. Companies have gone into hiring freeze. Several techies of MNCs based out of the city said that the hiring had come down drastically. A techie of Salesforce said, “In January, there were layoffs happening with about 10% of the workforce being moved out. However, now there is buzz on another round of layoffs. We are not sure if there will be any. There is hiring freeze going on i.e.,zero recruitment. Only in those places where employees left on their own there is back fill, but no new hires. We are likely to get hikes next week and many are not expecting big hikes. Already yearly bonuses are reduced. It is like Covid pandemic, the first wave is over, then there comes the second wave and of course the long Covid of no hikes, hiring freeze”.
Several companies are realigning their employees as the ripple effect of failure of banks in the US is felt in India. An employee of Wells Fargo said, “In the US, the business of home loans was impacted which resulted in direct impact on hundreds of employees here. They were asked to look for other job or look at internal job posting. It happened in a routine process and not like termination. The strength has been reduced.”
Hiring freeze and people with substantial knowledge are in demand. Techies point out that irrespective of how good the person is at one skill, they need to know multiple technologies. A Lalitha, techie from Deloitte, said, “There is reduction in recruitment, especially for regular skills. They need to have plus one skill, which means if they know one technology, they need to have another too. The projects related to Life Sciences sort of had an impact. There are people on bench, but not yet retrenched. The impact is clearly visible”.
Industry sources said that there are routing layoffs with the likes of Accenture, Infosys doing it. An industry expert said, “Freshers’ hiring has come to a freeze. Offer letters which were rolled out were taken back. Onboarding was delayed. Role optimisations are happening in Industry. The energy sector is in crisis, those divisions are winding up”.
Microsoft said it plans to cut 10,000 jobs, or about 5% of its workforce, in the first months of 2023. It laid off employees at its R&D divisions in Hyderabad and Bengaluru as part of it. Github, a Microsoft-owned software code hosting platform, has fired its entire Indian engineering team of over 140 developers in order to “streamline” the company’s operations.
Since new labour laws are not yet applicable in Telangana, the hiring and layoffs are not being done at their own will.
Y. Kiran Chandra, general secretary, Free Software Movement in India, said, “In case any company wants to terminate employees, first they should consider skill enhancement and loyalty and look at available options. It is unfortunate that despite largest markets of Microsoft are from India, they have to resort to retrenchment. There is no reason for them to lay off in India. In Telangana, as of now the old labour law is being considered, they can’t hire and fire at their will as it is not law of land. Routine retrenchments happening as the bottom 5-10% people who are normally let off. India has geopolitical advantage as the US is in conflict with China. They are not in position to outsource to China;India is the only option”.
