The Hindu Business Line : Tech Mahindra defers appointing campus recruits by two quarters

Mumbai, May 4 Over 3,000 campus recruits of Tech Mahindra who passed out last year will have to wait for at least the next six months to come on board as the global recession has hit demand for IT services.

“We have deferred joining of most of the people by two-quarters at least,” Mr Sujit Baksi, President, Corporate Affairs, said in a recent conference call with analysts.

Tech Mahindra made 1,500 campus offers for 2009-10 and over twice as many from 2008-09 (out of 5,500 offers made) are yet to join the firm, according to a recent research report from ICICI Securities.

Many of these employees-in-the-wings have been waiting for the last nine months. The company has also postponed (for a short period) most of its campus-led long-term hiring programmes, Mr Sanjay Kalra, President - Strategic Initiatives, told analysts.

The 24,972-employee strong Tech Mahindra recently agreed to acquire a controlling stake in the scam-hit Satyam Computer Services for Rs 2,889 crore.

Optimisation of human resources is going to be the biggest challenge for the new owner of Satyam, industry analysts feel.

If Tech Mahindra were to retain every employee in Satyam, it would be up against a 73,000-strong workforce.

Having said that there is no legal binding on Tech Mahindra to retain every employee of Satyam.

The volatile economic environment coupled with forex losses led to Tech Mahindra posting a muted net profit growth of five per cent for the fourth quarter ended March 31, 2009.

On a sequential basis, Tech Mahindra ended the quarter gone by with 457 fewer employees.