Headcount at India’s top five IT services providers fell for the seventh straight quarter, but a slowdown in the pace of the decline in the April-June period raised optimism about the companies ending the fiscal year with an expanded employee count.The number of aggregate employees at Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys, Wipro, HCLTech and Tech Mahindra dropped by 2,034 sequentially in the first quarter ended June 30, according to the quarterly data they announced in July. Three of the companies — TCS, Wipro and Tech Mahindra — registered net additions in headcount.

“The gradual slowdown of the degrowth with the quantum of the headcount drop reducing over the last five quarters is a positive movement,” said Deepti S, business head of technology staff augmentation at Xpheno, a specialist staffing company.

With three of the top five ending the quarter with an increase in headcount, the prospects for the onset of a recovery are high this fiscal year, she added.

Amid an uncertain business environment in their main markets of the US and Europe, IT services companies in India had slowed down hiring for some quarters. Their first-quarter results and outlook suggest that the situation may be improving, though it may still be far from normal.Together these five companies closed the first quarter of fiscal 2025 with a headcount of 15,23,742, compared with 15,25,776 at the end March. TCS topped the list with 606,998 employees, followed by Infosys at 315,332.

Wipro has seen an increase in its headcount in Q1FY25, said a spokesperson in an emailed response to ET’s queries.“During this quarter, we have also onboarded approximately 3,000 new gen associates (NGAs) to whom offers had been made earlier,” the spokesperson said. “In FY25, we foresee an overall intake of 10,000 to 12,000 NGAs and in addition will hire in the areas of GenAI, cybersecurity and cloud.”

HCLTech ended FY24 with 227,481 employees. Its headcount expanded in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2024, said chief people officer Ramachandran Sundararajan. “Perhaps, one of the years where we’ve bucked the trend to have net headcount addition throughout the year,” he said in the post results call.

In the first quarter of FY25, its headcount fell by a little over 8,000.

TCS, Infosys and Tech Mahindra did not respond toET’s request for comment.

The collective headcount of the five companies at the end of the June quarter was 49,363 fewer than a year earlier, according to Xpheno.

Their headcount has shrunk 3% over the last two years, but grown 18% compared with three years earlier, according to Deepti.

In the 12-month period ended June 2021, IT headcount had increased by 151,000 from the previous year. This was also the period when IT talent was high in demand, with many jumping jobs getting over 100% pay hikes.

Headcount at India’s top five IT services providers fell for the seventh straight quarter, but a slowdown in the pace of the decline in the April-June period raised optimism about the companies ending the fiscal year with an expanded employee count.The number of aggregate employees at Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys, Wipro, HCLTech and Tech Mahindra dropped by 2,034 sequentially in the first quarter ended June 30, according to the quarterly data they announced in July. Three of the companies — TCS, Wipro and Tech Mahindra — registered net additions in headcount.

“The gradual slowdown of the degrowth with the quantum of the headcount drop reducing over the last five quarters is a positive movement,” said Deepti S, business head of technology staff augmentation at Xpheno, a specialist staffing company.

With three of the top five ending the quarter with an increase in headcount, the prospects for the onset of a recovery are high this fiscal year, she added.

Amid an uncertain business environment in their main markets of the US and Europe, IT services companies in India had slowed down hiring for some quarters. Their first-quarter results and outlook suggest that the situation may be improving, though it may still be far from normal.Together these five companies closed the first quarter of fiscal 2025 with a headcount of 15,23,742, compared with 15,25,776 at the end March. TCS topped the list with 606,998 employees, followed by Infosys at 315,332.

Wipro has seen an increase in its headcount in Q1FY25, said a spokesperson in an emailed response to ET’s queries.“During this quarter, we have also onboarded approximately 3,000 new gen associates (NGAs) to whom offers had been made earlier,” the spokesperson said. “In FY25, we foresee an overall intake of 10,000 to 12,000 NGAs and in addition will hire in the areas of GenAI, cybersecurity and cloud.”

HCLTech ended FY24 with 227,481 employees. Its headcount expanded in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2024, said chief people officer Ramachandran Sundararajan. “Perhaps, one of the years where we’ve bucked the trend to have net headcount addition throughout the year,” he said in the post results call.

In the first quarter of FY25, its headcount fell by a little over 8,000.

TCS, Infosys and Tech Mahindra did not respond toET’s request for comment.

The collective headcount of the five companies at the end of the June quarter was 49,363 fewer than a year earlier, according to Xpheno.

Their headcount has shrunk 3% over the last two years, but grown 18% compared with three years earlier, according to Deepti.

In the 12-month period ended June 2021, IT headcount had increased by 151,000 from the previous year. This was also the period when IT talent was high in demand, with many jumping jobs getting over 100% pay hikes.