Cognizant to hire 28,000 freshers in India in 2021
Cognizant, one of the world’s leading IT services companies is planning to recruit 28,000 freshers this year in India compared to 17,000 hired last year in 2020 to deal with a steep rise in voluntary attrition 21% compared to 19% in the previous quarter..
The rise in attrition is now beginning to hurt the company’s revenue, as it was forced to let go of new business due to its inability to hire talent.
The company is now putting in place measures that include training, quarterly promotions, and job rotations to provide more opportunities for growth and stanch attrition. The company has a headcount of 2,96,500, and more than two lakh employees are based in India.
“Our first-quarter performance reflects solid revenue growth in our digital services and consistent execution of our strategy,” said Jan Siegmund, Chief Financial Officer, “To support our commercial momentum, we are increasing our investments in recruiting and talent,” CFO added.
Brian Humphries, CEO of Cognizant told an earnings call that the company is doing the right thing to address attrition. “And of course, in the meantime, we’re working to manage the salary inflationary elements of this.”
Brian said the company will see sequential increases in attrition based on the resignations in the last few months because there was a two-month notice period in India. “So we have a strong understanding as to what attrition will be in Q2. But that’s been factored into our model and into our guidance. And in the meantime, we’ve been hiring at record pace given the extra recruiters we’ve put to work,” Brian said to the Finacial Express.
To address retention challenges, the company has been executing a multi-part plan that includes stepping up its internal engagement efforts, increasing investments in its people through training and job rotations to provide opportunities for career growth, he said.
