Bengaluru: Amid growing concerns over job cuts in the IT sector, Infosys Chief Executive Officer Salil Parekh has said the company plans to hire around 20,000 fresh graduates during the current financial year.

“We recruited over 17,000 people (gross hiring) in the first quarter and plan to bring in about 20,000 college graduates this year,” Parekh quoted.

The company, which has been investing in artificial intelligence (AI) and employee reskilling, has so far trained over 2.75 lakh employees at various levels, he said.

The announcement comes days after Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) said it would lay off over 12,000 employees this fiscal, marking the largest downsizing exercise in the Indian IT industry to date. No other Indian IT firm has announced job cuts on a similar scale so far this year.

Industry body Nasscom, in its latest outlook, said some degree of "workforce rationalisation" is expected in the near term, driven by increased adoption of product-aligned delivery models and growing demand for agility, speed, and innovation from global clients.

Commenting on AI's growing role, Parekh said, “AI enables deeper automation and better insights, but also requires higher-level skills and increased effort.” He added that Infosys remains committed to expanding its workforce and enhancing technological capabilities.

On AI-led automation in coding, he said productivity gains have ranged from 5 to 15 per cent, with even higher efficiencies seen in customer service and knowledge-based tasks.

He also highlighted the success of Infosys Finacle, the firm's banking platform, which has delivered up to 20 per cent productivity improvement by integrating automation with human expertise.

Regarding employee compensation, Parekh said salary hikes for Q4 and Q1 of the last fiscal have been completed. “We are now evaluating the timing for the next round of increases, in line with our regular process,” he said.