Tech graduates in India with employment offers from large companies, including Wipro, Infosys, and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), are scouting for other jobs as onboarding delays stretch beyond six months, reports LiveMint. Meanwhile, students and engineering colleges are worried that the delays will also impact coming campus placements.

Technology service providers are one of India's largest recruiters from college campuses, and they went on a vast hiring spree in FY22. Infosys hired 85,000 in FY22, Wipro 17,000, TCS 100,000, and HCL 23,000 campus graduates or freshers in the last fiscal. While the offers were made when the business outlook was robust, the tech firms are now confronting an uncertain economic outlook because of fears of a recession in the US, their biggest market. Increased travel and subcontracting costs, margin pressures and higher costs of work-from-office are prompting companies to absorb new hires at a slower pace.

These firms are also trying to improve cost efficiency by reducing annual hikes, variable payouts and slowing the pace of replacement hiring. The firms are also reskilling employees instead of hiring laterally, as manpower utilisation in the sector is expected to ebb over the next couple of quarters.