If you've been applying to the usual big names and hearing nothing back, it isn't just you. India's top five IT services companies — TCS, Infosys, Wipro, HCLTech, and Tech Mahindra — added a combined net total of only 17 employees in the first nine months of FY26, according to People Matters. Weak global demand, cautious client spending, and AI-driven delivery models that need fewer hands are all compressing the net hiring numbers that used to absorb thousands of freshers and lateral hires every quarter.
That doesn't mean hiring has stopped — it means it has moved. Here's how to search accordingly.
Net headcount figures hide a lot of churn: companies are still backfilling specific skills even while total numbers stay flat or shrink. But if you want volume hiring right now, look past the largest IT services brands toward product companies, GCCs (global capability centres), and mid-sized firms that are still expanding. Workforce solutions provider Adecco India has projected tech hiring could still grow 12–15% in 2026, adding close to 125,000 jobs, concentrated in AI engineering, cloud transformation, cybersecurity, and data platforms.
When overall hiring slows, companies get pickier about exactly who they bring in. Generic full-stack or QA profiles face the most competition. Candidates who can point to hands-on work with cloud migration, AI/ML implementation, or security operations are competing in a much thinner pool. If your resume doesn't yet reflect one of these areas, a focused certification or a side project you can describe in specifics is worth more right now than a broader job search.
In a slow market, recruiters are flooded with applications and increasingly rely on internal referrals to filter signal from noise. A warm introduction from a current employee can be the difference between your resume being read and being buried. Don't just ask former colleagues for a referral in general — ask them specifically whether their team has an open requisition that matches your background.
Despite the flat net numbers, individual companies have announced active campus hiring: HCLTech has committed to 10,000 hires and Wipro plans to bring in 2,500–3,000 students per quarter from campuses. These cycles create downstream openings too, since experienced employees get redeployed onto new projects tied to that hiring. Tracking which companies are visibly hiring freshers can tip you off to where lateral openings are likely to follow.
A flat hiring market rewards people who keep their skills and network moving, not people who pause their search until conditions improve. Treat this period as the time to close specific skill gaps, build a portfolio of visible work, and stay in touch with your network, so you're ready the moment a role opens rather than starting from zero when it does.