HCL Tech to hire ‘significantly’ and bring back wage hikes over the next three months — 9,000 new freshers likely to be onboarded by March

• HCL Technologies is rolling our wage increments starting October for junior employees and January next year for senior employees.
• The company also plans to hire aggressively over the next six months at both lateral and fresher levels.
• The Indian IT services behemoth hopes to achieve its target of adding 12,000 freshers to its roster this fiscal, by onboarding 9,000 in the second half.

HCL Technologies is set to bring back wage hikes for its employees starting October and plans to hire ‘significantly’ over the next three months — and continue that momentum till March 2021.


“We expect a large number of recruitments to happen before December,” said HCL’s Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO) Apparao VV. “It is much much more than the initial two quarters.” This includes both freshers and lateral hires.

Increments have also started rolling out from October 1 for junior-level employees, and will be effective for senior-level employees starting January 1, 2021. “Wages hikes were only deferred by one quarter from the company’s regular increment cycle,” said CEO C Vijayakumar

Apparao added that the increments will be in line with what was doled out last year. The average numbers last year were 6% at offshore and 2.5% onsite.

HCL wants to hire 12,000 freshers this year
By March 2021, HCL Tech plans to have a total of 12,000 freshers on board. This is a step up from last year when the company added around 8,100 freshers overall.

In the second quarter, HCL Tech added an overall 2,798 employees to its roster between July and September, of which 1,578 were freshers. “This is lower than what we anticipated because of COVID-19 situation and the low availability of people,” said Apparao.

In the first quarter, the number of freshers added was around 1,200. Many students in line with offer letters were not onboarded yet since their final exams were postponed during the lockdown.

Nonetheless, it still means there’s still a deficit of around 9,000 freshers before HCL Tech can meet its target.

Yesterday, the Forbes fourth annual list of the ‘Forbes best employers’ ranked HCL Tech as the 30th best employer globally in 2020. This puts it among the top multinationals headquartered in India for employees.

Vijayakumar lauded the company’s employees for being one of the five primary factors that led to the IT services behemoth’s growth despite the impact of COVID-19.