India’s Monthly Tech Hiring Hits Pause While GCCs Grow 20%

India’s technology hiring market is slowing again, but Global Capability Centres (GCCs) continue to hire steadily, while much of the sector is turning cautious. Active tech job openings in India fell 2% month-on-month in May to 108,000 roles, according to Xpheno’s Active Tech Jobs Outlook report, released in May. 

The staffing firm tracks hiring recovery through growth in active job demand and the freshness of job postings. It also monitors the tech sector’s share of India’s overall hiring market, which currently stands at 47%, far below the 80% it once commanded.

Entry-level openings decreased by 19% compared to the previous year, while senior roles declined by 33% from April. Conversely, GCC hiring increased by 20% month-on-month and 29% year-on-year. Hiring in IT services stayed steady month-to-month but declined by 17% year-over-year.

“GCC hiring is being driven primarily by long-term capability building rather than AI-led demand,” Kamal Karanth, Co-founder of Xpheno, tells AIM. He states that most GCCs operate with structured 3-5 year talent acquisition roadmaps that remain relatively stable, even amid short-term market fluctuations.

The contrast is becoming sharper. Traditional IT employers are slowing campus intake and expansion hiring. Meanwhile, GCCs continue building long-term engineering and product teams in India.

Neeti Sharma, CEO of TeamLease Digital, says that GCCs are investing differently from IT services firms because their priorities have shifted. “Most GCCs are hiring with a long-term capability-building mindset, while IT services firms are becoming far more utilisation- and margin-focused,” Sharma tells AIM. She opines that many IT services companies are now trying to “do more with smaller teams” and prioritising multi-skilled talent rather than large-scale hiring.

Freshers Find Fewer Openings

The slowdown has hit entry-level talent the hardest.

Xpheno’s report indicated that job openings for candidates with up to two years of experience decreased to 13,000 in May from 15,000 in April. Additionally, full-time positions declined 6% month-on-month.

The report stated that "the overall sentiment on hiring remains cautious and conservative among both employees and employers." Karanth notes that the decline in hiring fresh graduates is mainly seen in IT services companies and startups, rather than in GCCs.

“GCCs have historically not been key absorbers of fresh talent in India,” he adds. He further notes that professionals with 5-11 years of experience remain the strongest hiring segment because companies continue replacement hiring even as expansion plans slow.

Meanwhile, Sharma says services companies reduced hiring over the past 18 to 24 months, drawing on existing bench strength and facing lower visibility of demand. However, she notes that some GCCs still hire freshers in focused areas such as AI, analytics, cloud, and engineering.

Companies now favour candidates with practical AI skills over academic qualifications, and the market emphasises selective hiring rather than broad expansion.

“Companies are not halting hiring. They are being much more selective and strategic about their choices,” Sharma says.

India’s GCCs Want Builders

India’s GCC ecosystem has changed over the past few years. Earlier, many centres focused on support operations and back-office functions. Today, companies are building engineering, cybersecurity, cloud and product teams in India.

Regardless, recent findings indicate that 0% of GCCs in India are AI-native. Xpheno reports that the highest demand continues to be for roles in data engineering, cybersecurity, cloud and platform engineering, and product management.

Overall, the current hiring momentum indicates broader capability-building efforts rather than a rapid AI-driven expansion, according to Karanth. The report highlights ongoing uncertainty about AI and its impact on jobs, compounded by the trend of ‘AI washing’ talent-related claims, resulting in widespread market ambiguity.

Despite the buzz around AI, hiring growth in AI and semiconductor roles remains moderate compared to other engineering areas. 

GCC hiring is driven by banking, manufacturing, automotive, and enterprise software sectors, says Xpheno. 

Hiring company TeamLease Digital highlights strong momentum in semiconductors and electronics manufacturing, driven by supply-chain diversification and India’s focus on deep-tech manufacturing.

The broader market, however, remains under pressure. 

Tech and engineering openings dropped 8% monthly and annually. Project management roles saw a 63% yearly decline. Startups also continued to slow hiring. Openings among funded tech startups fell 13% month-on-month and 7% annually.

Rise in Contract Hiring as Firms Stay Cautious

Xpheno reported a 67% year-on-year rise in contract openings as companies are also changing how they hire. Karant says the companies are increasingly using contract staffing to maintain workforce flexibility and optimise costs.

The report noted shifts in geography and work preferences. Bengaluru had 25,000 openings in May, a 29% drop year-on-year, with Hyderabad also down 29%. Delhi NCR and Pune grew monthly. 

Hiring in tier-2 and tier-3 cities nearly doubled year-on-year, despite a 10% monthly dip. 

Sharma says companies moved to smaller cities to cut costs but now find strong engineering talent outside the metros. Even remote work declined. Full-time remote openings fell 24%, hybrid roles grew 13%, and 71% of tech openings were work-from-office.

The Xpheno report further states that the tech sector continues to see a decline in active talent demand.

However, the hiring slowdown is not uniform across the market. On the one hand, companies are reducing the intake of freshers and slowing their expansion plans. On the other hand, companies continue to build long-term engineering capabilities through GCC investments in India.