IT major Infosys saw a 2.5% dip in headcount sequentially for the quarter ended March 2026. The Bengaluru-headquartered tech services provider’s total workforce at the end of the fiscal fourth quarter was 328,594, down 8440 from 337,034 in the prior quarter.
On a full fiscal basis however, the firm added a little over 5,016 employees in FY26, as compared to 323,578 at the end of FY25.
“The headcount is the function multiple things – the growth rate, volumes, the utilization and so on. Keeping these in mind we derive the number of people that we need to hire. If you look at this quarter, the volumes were softer and utilization was lower,” Jayesh Sanghrajka, chief financial officer, Infosys said.
MD and CEO Salil Parekh added that seasonality also played a role in the hiring strategy for the quarter. The firm onboarded 20,000 freshers in FY26 and plans to reach the same number in the current fiscal.
“We have different starting compensation for people who are coming with skills more attuned to AI. We are also building (a pool of) forward deployed engineers to make sure that we can do more work directly with clients to make the AI solutions,” Parekh said.
Infy’ commentary on hiring and entry level onboarding is in line with peers. IT majors have called out change in their fresher hiring strategy, as delivery models evolve and move to outcome-based billing, and disengage from headcount led billing.
TCS has reduced its fresher intake for FY27 to around 25,000, compared to 44,000 onboarded in FY26. Wipro, HCLTech and TechM have not put a number to their fresher hiring targets, something which is unusual in a sector that has some of India’s largest recruiters for tech talent.
IT firms are increasingly moving to demand visibility led hiring implying it no longer will look to hire to bolster bench strength, a practice which was the norm when billing was basis the man hours put on a project.
“For next fiscal, we do not have any targets right now, it depends completely on demand. (It is a) very volatile environment right now. So, we will play it by the ear. As the demand picks up, we’ll see how it goes,” Saurabh Govil, chief human resources officer at Wipro said at the firm’s Q4 earnings meet.
Govil also said that Wipro has reduced its campus hiring over the past four years. It onboarded 19,000 freshers in FY22, which then dropped to around 10,000 in FY25, and finally 7,500 in FY26.
Both HCLTech and TechM also did not give a guidance for fresher hires in FY27. Management commentary remained focussed on hiring for roles and skills in demand, and when these demands rise.
TechM chief financial officer Rohit Anand said that the firm attributed the slowdown in fresher hiring to a change in strategy regarding the same in FY26. “We took a pause; the demand profile with AI is also changing. So, this year saw minimum fresher hiring,” he said.
In fact, TechM was the only other IT large cap to see a decline in its headcount at the end of March 2026. While TCS and HCLTech added employees at a rate of 0.3-0.4% sequentially, TechM saw a 1.33% decline in its workforce. Wipro’s overall headcount was more or less flat sequentially at the end of March 2026.