Information Technology Services and consulting company Accenture is on a hiring spree and has recruited 1.62 lakh employees in the last year globally — the highest reported by any IT services company in a year.
Of this, nearly 40 per cent will be in India, which is the company’s largest centre, followed by the Philippines and the US, said analysts tracking the industry.
Accenture is currently having a headcount of around 6,99,000, globally, and over 2,50,000 people are in India.
Following an interaction with Union Finance Minister of India, Nirmala Sitharaman in the US last week, Accenture CEO Julie Sweet, in a video tweeted from the ministry of finance Twitter handle, said: “We are very fortunate to have great talent and an amazing group of people of 300,000 in India and we truly appreciate the government’s focus on making India a great place to do business.”
Accenture’s hiring comes in the backdrop of strong second-quarter results reported by the global professional services company which provides positive visibility to the Indian IT services sector’s growth momentum.
The company has primarily operated in India’s metros, and is setting up offices in Jaipur and Coimbatore, as part of a move to access more talent and give employees greater flexibility with respect to where they want to work from home.
Kamal Karanth, Co-Founder, Xpheno, a specialist staffing solutions company said, “The company’s net headcount addition of 1.6 lakh over a 12-month period is a record in its own growth terms. While the number refers to Accenture’s global hiring, the majority of the action is contributed by the Indian workforce that accounts for over 40 per cent of the total.”
He said, “Purely on Indian territory demographics, Accenture’s net hiring volume is a strong contender to be the highest annual net additions count by an IT services player. Accenture’s spike in net hiring has been driven purely by its strong business performance since FY21.”
He future added, “After registering the highest YoY net revenue growth of 11 per cent in FY21, it continues to rise on a stronger growth trajectory. With current fiscal’s YTD revenue already at over 60 per cent of the previous total net revenue, Accenture’s new bookings also on an equal high. The strong order pipeline will continue to drive headcount growth.”
As for lateral hires are concerned, Accenture is believed to offer very competitive and higher compensation if the talent is right. Most Indian peers do not have such aggression.
In less than seven years, it has doubled its headcount in India.