Hiring at India's Big Four outsourcers stalls, as AI seemingly makes an impact

India's big four outsourcers - HCL, Infosys, TCS and Wipro - have essentially stopped hiring, perhaps coinciding with their increased use of AI to power their practices.

The four companies have all announced quarterly results in the last ten days and appear to be in decent health. HCL reported $3.8 billion revenue, up 7.4 percent year over year. Infosys pulled in $5.1 billion, up 1.7 percent year over year. TCS revenue of $7.5 billion represented a three percent increase. Wipro's $2.6 billion revenue represented a 5.5 percent year over year improvement.

India's top tech companies often hire more than 10,000 people a quarter, a rate of recruitment that more-than offsets attrition and sees their headcounts rise substantially. Wipro increased its payroll by 6,500 people last quarter and Infosys hired 5,000 more - muted growth by their standards - while TCS and HCL went backward by 11,000 and 261 people respectively.

Over the last year, the four companies added just 3,910 staff, an unusually slow rate of hiring.

Perhaps coincidentally, all four companies told investors they're using more AI to deliver services for clients, either by adopting the technology to streamline their own work or by adding it to the tools they deliver to customers. Infosys has gone meta with its efforts, by creating a tool that uses AI to create Global Capability Centers, the company's term for offshored and/or outsourced operations it runs for clients in India, that use AI to improve customers' operations.

All also report that clients are hungry for AI expertise, so they can put the technology to work streamlining their operations. As you would expect, on earnings calls the outsourcers' execs reached for metrics to describe their success with AI. For HCL that was pointing to 60 of its priority customers adopting one of its AI services. At TCS, the trophy win was using AI to accelerate the pace of software builds for a major client. Wipro is chuffed about the rate of adoption for its AI-infused operations tools WINGS and WEGA.

The four companies are all hiring people with AI skills as fast as they can find them while also training senior staff who are yet to wrap their heads around the tech, a new twist on the services industry's balancing act of trying to keep margins high by having inexperienced and low-salaried juniors handle much client work after high-cost seniors lead with consultancy.

Investors weren't spooked by what they heard, with the four companies' share prices steady - other than Infosys, which popped five percent. ®