India's IT companies are hiring again, but the recovery is uneven

Today's News & Updates Saturday, 31 October 2026 India edition · AI, technology, business, education & careers

Today's developments point towards an important shift: AI is creating new business opportunities, but companies are becoming more selective about where they invest, whom they hire and what skills they expect.

There are also important developments in banking cybersecurity, higher education, AI infrastructure and India's technology workforce.

Here are today's most relevant stories.

3. India's IT companies are hiring again, but the recovery is uneven

Important career update Moneycontrol · 26 October 2026

India's largest IT services companies have reported a substantial increase in employee additions during the September quarter.

The combined net headcount additions at TCS, Infosys, HCLTech, Wipro and Tech Mahindra reached 13,918 in Q2 FY27, compared with 5,480 in the previous quarter. Employee additions during Q2 FY27 13,918 Combined net headcount change across five major IT companies

*The company-level figures above should not be added together as a verified five-company total: the source's reported aggregate and Tech Mahindra figure require reconciliation. Net additions are also not the same as gross hiring.

The most encouraging part for students is the fresher hiring reported by some companies.

TCS: Onboarded around 10,000 fresh graduates in Q2, taking its first-half campus hiring to approximately 24,000.

Infosys: Hired 8,000 college graduates in Q2 and retained its FY27 target of 20,000 fresh graduates.

HCLTech: Added 6,136 freshers during the quarter. Around 15% were placed in its Elite Engineer category, which is intended to build specialised engineering talent.

Wipro, meanwhile, reduced its workforce by 6,716 employees in the quarter.

What is the bigger story?

The Indian IT industry is not following one uniform hiring pattern. Some companies are adding employees and onboarding graduates, while others are reducing headcount or adopting more demand-driven recruitment.

This means students should not interpret industry-wide hiring numbers as a guarantee of opportunities at every company.

What should freshers do?

Prepare for the specific roles that companies are hiring for. Strengthen programming fundamentals, understand software development, build practical projects and learn how AI fits into real enterprise applications.

Sources: Moneycontrol — IT firms add employees in Q2 · ETHRWorld — IT workforce trends Moneycontrol+1

Editorial source note

Figures and claims remain attributed to the supplied reporting, not independently verified by Aiexl.