India’s Tech Hiring is Back, But GCCs Didn’t Get the Memo

India’s technology hiring market is showing signs of recovery after several months of slowdown. But one of its biggest hiring engines, global capability centres (GCCs), is moving in a different direction.

India’s active tech job demand fell to a 28-month low in June, attributing the downturn to multiple developments in the United States, a key market for India’s technology services industry, which dampened hiring sentiment across technology cohorts.

Now, in August, overall active technology job openings in India rose 3% month-on-month to 109,000, extending the recovery that began in July, according to Xpheno’s latest Active Tech Jobs Outlook. 

The report noted that active demand has recovered more than 17% since June. The demand is also up 6% year-on-year.

GCC hiring, on the other hand, declined 6% month-on-month to 17,000 active openings. That comes even as hiring by IT services firms grew 5% during the same period. Despite the monthly decline, GCC hiring remains 21% higher than it was a year ago, suggesting companies are slowing recruitment without changing their long-term expansion plans.

However, Kamal Karanth, Co-founder of Xpheno, cautions against reading too much into the decline. He observes that GCC active openings remains within the 17,000–18,000 range seen over the past four months.

“This is a typical monthly moderation up and down that happens when the demand is broad-based across a large number of enterprises contributing small counts each,” he tells AIM.

Recovery Isn’t Universal

Xpheno said India’s technology sector is entering a phase of stabilisation after months of correction. The tech sector is “not in a rush to pump jobs into the market again” because of continuing uncertainty in global markets. Industry executives also mention the contrasting trends point to a change in hiring strategy rather than weakening demand.

The report estimated that technology openings in August reached levels last seen in April. It also noted that overall demand remains 8.5% below the March peak of 119,000 openings.

IT services firms accounted for 44,000 active openings, while GCCs represented 17,000 jobs, or about 16% of total active technology demand. The report also found stronger growth in non-tech sectors and big four technology functions, indicating that hiring recovery is becoming broader even if it remains measured.

For GCCs, though, the picture looks different.

“It’s important to look at the bigger picture. GCC hiring is still more than 20% higher than it was a year ago. Hiring is being reset after a very strong run, with companies becoming more selective about the roles they fill,” notes Neeti Sharma, CEO of TeamLease Digital.

That suggests GCCs are moving from rapid expansion towards more measured hiring. Zinnov says this reflects a broader shift in how GCCs define growth, with capability becoming a stronger marker than employee numbers. 

“A mature GCC is increasingly defined by the sophistication of the work it owns and the specialisation of its talent, not by the size of its team,” remarks Sukanya Roy, Partner and Head of India GCC Business at Zinnov.

Quality Over Quantity

The recent slowdown may reflect a change in hiring priorities instead of a pause in expansion. Sharma believes that a single dip does not change the overall growth story.

“GCCs are still expected to hire 4.5–5 lakh professionals this year. The real change is in the kind of talent they’re looking for. Around 75–80% of hiring is now for experienced professionals and niche specialists, as companies focus on building leaner teams with deeper expertise instead of adding large numbers of employees.”

Xpheno’s hiring data also shows where demand remains concentrated. Engineering and IT roles account for nearly 55% of GCC openings, followed by finance and accounting at 12%, and operations and programme management at 9%. Together, the three functions account for roughly three-fourths of active GCC hiring.

As per TeamLease Digital’s analysis, mid-senior openings accounted for more than half of all technology jobs in August, while entry-level roles, although up sequentially, remained below last year’s levels.

The report also showed that contract hiring rose 33% MoM, while internship and part-time openings increased 50% from a smaller base. Full-time positions continued to dominate hiring, accounting for nearly three-fourths of all active openings.

AI is Changing the Game

The biggest change inside GCCs is not the pace of hiring but the type of roles companies want to fill. “While few GCCs continue to hire at scale across every function, others are hiring for critical, high-impact roles,” Sharma observes.

She adds that nearly two out of every three openings now require skills in AI, data, or automation, and most open positions want experienced professionals rather than fresh graduates. 

The strongest demand continues to be in generative AI, MLOps, cybersecurity, cloud engineering, platform engineering, and data engineering. Limited talent in these areas is pushing salaries higher.

“Because the talent pool is still limited, professionals in these areas are seeing 25–30% higher salaries than comparable technology roles,” Sharma said.

Zinnov sees a similar pattern. It says engineering R&D remains the biggest hiring area, accounting for 30.8% of demand, followed by AI, data, cloud, cybersecurity, and platform engineering. Rather than treating these as separate priorities, enterprises are increasingly building them together as part of a single technology stack.

AI is also changing workforce planning and how companies hire. While it may not be replacing people on a large scale, it is changing the mix of talent. Routine work is increasingly being automated, while demand is rising for professionals who can build, deploy, secure, and manage AI systems. 

Karanth believes AI has not yet fundamentally reshaped GCC hiring, as large-scale changes to talent strategies are still “a two-to-three year horizon” away. According to him, service-side AI roles are increasingly being filled through structured internal upskilling, while specialist AI engineering talent continues to be hired laterally because the available talent pool remains limited.

In fact, according to Sharma, only about one in five GCC leaders believe AI can significantly replace human talent today, while most are still figuring out how to measure AI’s business impact. 

This was also echoed by Jared Aho, Senior Director of NI Marketing at Emerson, in a recent interaction with AIM. “Companies are mandating AI, and then immediately they ask us, ‘What’s the ROI?’ But we don’t even yet know the right places throughout test engineering where AI delivers the most value.”

The result is a flatter organisation with fewer generalists and more specialists. Sharma expects hiring to strengthen over the next two quarters, though not through broad-based volume recruitment.

“The next wave of hiring is likely to be concentrated in AI, cybersecurity, cloud, platform engineering, and digital product roles. Going forward, GCC growth will be measured more by the quality of talent and capabilities they build than by the number of people they hire.”

Roy also notes GCC hiring is becoming “more deliberate, not more expansive”, with organisations increasingly prioritising capability, internal mobility, and specialised skills over broad-based recruitment. 

For now, this means India’s technology hiring recovery is becoming more visible. But the next phase of GCC growth may be measured less by the number of people companies hire and more by the strategic capabilities they build.