Nasscom president R. Chandrashekhar claimed that top five IT companies hired additional 50,000 people between January to March in 2017.

New Delhi: Rejecting reports of mass lay-offs in IT sector, Nasscom on Thursday said that the industry will hire about 1.5 lakh people this year on “net” basis. However, Nasscom said that employees need to upgrade their skills with changing times to remain competitive.

“You guys and your colleagues have done a lot of reporting which we know is not based on facts,” said Nasscom chairman, Raman Roy during a press conference called over media reports suggesting that over 50,000 people could be laid off this year from top IT firms.

Nasscom president R. Chandrashekhar claimed that top five IT companies hired additional 50,000 people between January to March in 2017. He said in FY 2017, the industry added 1.70 lakh new jobs on net basis.

“Hiring continues across the sector. Industry will remain a major net hirer in 2018,” said Mr Chandrashekhar.  

“At the same time performance linked workforce realignment which is based on appraisal, skill sets has been prevalent practice in the industry. Typically it impacts 0.5-3 per cent (workforce). It could vary from year to year, from company to company. But this is how industry has dealt with changing challenges. There has been no change in this overall pattern in current year,” he said.

However, Nasscom president said that there is a gentle deceleration in net hiring growth rate.