Global Capability Centres (GCCs) in India are experiencing a significant surge in fresher and entry-level talent hiring from colleges and off-campus.
They seek to boost the supply of lower-cost talent and build a robust internal talent pool to support their fast-expanding operations.
GCCs Hiring Trends and Statistics
GCCs have traditionally hired between 85,000 and 1,00,000 freshers every year.
This fiscal year, they are expected to scale up their needs to 114,000-133,000 freshers, according to data from Teamlease.
In 2023, almost 32% of the entry-level hires in GCCs were off-campus. This percentage is expected to reach close to 40% in 2025.
The off-campus hiring rate in FY24 was at 35-36%.
The trends indicate that GCCs are increasingly hiring from engineering colleges, business schools, and general degree institutions.
This is to fulfill their talent needs across skills in domain, technology, and behavior.
This move is part of a broader strategy to balance staff costs and develop sustainable domain expertise in the younger workforce early on.
Industry Insights and Competitive Advantage
Industry experts believe that GCCs, which started as back-office units for multinationals, hired more experienced and competitive talent until recently.
As they move up the value chain in terms of India-based functions, these GCCs are required to hire both experienced professionals and freshers. This approach helps them maintain a competitive edge.
This shift is driven by the need to adopt better practices from India’s $254 billion IT services industry.
Given India’s abundant supply of college graduates and relatively lower average starting salaries (often 1/10th to 1/20th of developed markets at the entry level), it is imperative that GCCs develop a muscle to attract high intrinsic STEM talent and train them for their specific needs with a strong domain flavor.
GCCs can inject the unique business domain aspects of the parent organization into the training content.
They can also include cultural elements in the training. This approach helps in orienting the freshers to the organization’s culture effectively.
GCCs in India: Future Outlook
Experts believe that if GCCs can replicate talent supply chain learnings of IT services firms and invest in fresher absorption, they would gain a steady supply of relatively lower-cost talent.
This talent may need 6-18 months to become billable. However, they would form the bedrock of client service delivery. This approach would also help keep costs competitive.
By 2025, India is projected to have 1,900 GCCs with over 2 million employees. These centers are expected to increase their fresher hiring by 48% compared to last year.
Note: We are also on WhatsApp, LinkedIn, Google News, and YouTube, to get the latest news updates, Subscribe to our Channels. WhatsApp– Click Here, Google News– Click Here, YouTube – Click Here, and LinkedIn– Click Here.
