HCL to hire 10,000 employees in US

HCL Technologies on Wednesday said it will give salary hikes of up to 8 per cent to its offshoreemployees and its plan of hiring 10,000 people in the US and Europe is also on track despite the global economic uncertainties.

"About 75 per cent of the workforce will receive their hikes in July, while the remaining at management levels willget it in October as per our cycle.

"Offshore employees are getting hikes of about eight per cent and onsite employees will get two per cent increase," HCL Technologies Vice-Chairman and CEO Vineet Nayar said.

The hikes are in line with most of the other players like TCS and Wipro, who have given similar hikes. They are also sticking to their hiring targets.TCS expects to hire 50,000 people this year, while Wipro has not disclosed its numbers.

Infosys, on the other hand, has said it will stick to its plan of hiring 35,000 people this year, but has pushed the decision on wage hikes to October on account of global economic uncertainties.

During the quarter, HCL Technologies added 7,008 people (gross) and 1,855 employees (net), taking the total headcount to 84,319.

Attrition level of the company stood at 14 per cent in the April-June 2012 quarter.

The company has set a target of hiring 10,000 people in the US and Europe by 2015."We are in line with our target to hire responsibly. The focus is on increasing local hiring. Last year (2011-12) wehired 2,200 people in these markets," Nayar said.

With anti-outsourcing campaign against Indian technology companies gaining momentum in the US and Europe, most companies have been consistently hiring more and more in these markets to blunt the criticism of 'taking away' jobs.

While politicians and governments in these countries have objected to offshoring of work by their companies to countries like India so as to retain jobs back home, industry experts have called such criticism a political rhetoric.

The US and Europe account for as much as 80 per cent of the revenues of the $100 billion Indian IT-BPO market.