GCCs drive hiring for 2nd year, make up 1 lakh of 1.2 lakh tech jobs – The Times of India

BENGALURU: India’s technology sector expanded its workforce by 1.2 lakh people in 2024-25, with global capability centres (GCCs) accounting for over 1 lakh of these roles. It is significant that GCCs hired over 100,000 professionals during this period, up from 90,000 last year. Overall, the tech industry has 5.8 million employees.
Through the first nine months of 2024-25, top Indian IT firms hired just 11,000 people. In fact, the top five Indian IT services organisations increased their workforce by only 5,190 employees during the 2023-24 financial year. TOI reported how this will be the second consecutive year where GCCs will surpass IT firms in net hiring.
Even as India’s tech sector is expected to become a $300 billion industry in the 2025-26, the last few years have seen business models become dynamic and outcome-based. For the first time, Nasscom highlighted an even distribution in export revenues of $224 billion between MNCs (including GCCs) and Indian IT firms, with each contributing $112 billion.
The pendulum has swung from an employees’ market to an employers’ market, even as the IT sector’s business model is undergoing a massive transformation, with AI disrupting the linear relationship between revenue and employment. The current scenario reflects a period when major IT companies are experiencing single-digit growth rates and workforce reductions, while GCCs contributed significantly to employment growth in the previous year.
At the recent Nasscom Technology & Leadership Forum (NTLF), HCL CEO C Vijayakumar said if the IT services industry is “paranoid” about the change like an “existential threat,” it will come out winners in the long term.

Cognizant CEO Ravi Kumar told TOI recently that with machines writing 20% of the code, teams can accomplish more tasks with fewer personnel. This, Kumar said, creates an interesting economic scenario known as Jevons Paradox, where increased efficiency in resource usage leads to higher overall demand for that resource. In AI’s case, the efficiency it brings is enabling a lot more to be accomplished using AI, thereby increasing its use.
Kumar said GCCs are not adversaries, and Cognizant is beginning to work actively with them to do some parts of their work. He said he has set up a team to cater to GCCs.
Ramkumar Ramamoorthy, partner at Catalincs, a tech growth advisory firm, said, “It’s akin to the tale of two cities. The past year was another year of tepid growth for major IT services companies and of outsized growth for GCCs, resulting in the net hiring by GCCs being substantially higher for the second year in a row,” he said.
Nasscom president Rajesh Nambiar believes IT firms and GCCs complement each other and can benefit from this synergy.