Major IT firms expected to announce job losses

The Wall Street crisis could result in the loss of 20,000 to 25,000 jobs in India, says the Times of India, with the leading IT companies likely to announce huge layoffs in the next few years.

Satyam is planning a substantial cut in its labour force, and a couple of weeks ago Infosys reduced its workforce by about 3,000 employees. HP has also laid off 24,600 workers. An HR professional at another leading IT firm, who wished to remain anonymous, said that during the mid-year appraisal to be held between October-November, large-scale job cuts may be announced.

Many other companies have ordered recruitment firms not to hire any more professionals, according to Rajiv Mehrotra, country GM of hiring firm Kelly Services India. Already, he said, the Indian job market has already been affected by the troubles of Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch.

The banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) sector, the largest outsourcing vertical for Indian technology players, contributes up to 40 per cent of revenues for some top IT firms.

Almost 350,000 industry staff are employed in the BFSI space. Amongst these, the top six players - TCS, Infosys, Cognizant, HCL, Wipro and Satyam - account for 180,000 jobs. This sector records $10 billion of the total $32 billion revenues posted by the industry during the last financial year.