Nearly 6 per cent of outsourced contract workers have lost jobs in India’s information technology (IT) sector in the January-March period compared to those in the previous quarter, following the impact of global slowdown and Russia-Ukraine war, a recruitment body has said. 

The Indian Staffing Federation, a body of 120 recruitment agencies which provided about 60,000 outsourced workers, has said that nearly 6 per cent or about 3,600 of these workers have lost jobs in the March quarter. 

The country’s IT sector employed nearly 51 lakh workers in the year ending March 2022, according to government estimates, and companies have fired thousands of contract employees while holding on to hiring. 

“The drop in new employment generation within the IT flexi staffing sector mirrored the global slowdown in IT hiring,” Lohit Bhatia, the president of the Indian Staffing Federation, has said.  

However, hiring in the manufacturing, logistics and retail sectors has remained strong, helped by domestic consumer demand, he adds. 

The $194-billion IT sector, whose software services helped businesses adopt pandemic-era practices of online shopping and remote working, is facing a slowdown this year as employees return to offices and the Russia-Ukraine war weighs on spending from clients in Europe. 

A report by JP Morgan analysts has warned that soaring inflation, supply chain issues and the hit from the Ukraine war will bring an end to the growth boom that India’s IT services had enjoyed during the pandemic.