Nearly 4 out of 5 CIOs to expand IT teams despite hiring drop: Gartner

Technology leaders are planning to increase their IT headcount this year despite an overall drop in hiring activities due to economic uncertainties. A new report published on Wednesday by market research firm Gartner said that four out of five (nearly 81%) chief information officers (CIOs) said that they are looking to expand IT teams.

“Enterprises have undertaken various digital initiatives over the past two years, with operational excellence and customer or citizen experience being the most popular,” said Jose Ramirez, senior principal analyst at Gartner. He, however, added that despite the momentum, they realise that these initiatives often do not meet enterprise needs quickly enough.”

“About 67% of CIOs plan to grow their IT headcount in 2023 by at least 10% to support their enterprise’s digital initiatives,” said Ramirez, adding that retaining technology talent, however, continues to remain a key concern for CIOs.

CIOs cite cybersecurity, cloud platforms and customer/user experience (CX/U/) as the three most critical technical skills in 2023. Nearly half of the CIOs plan to invest in training programs to upskill and reskill IT staff to ensure teams have the relevant roles, skills and capacity to meet enterprise objectives. Nearly 46% of CIOs also plan to establish fusion teams, and the same percentage plan to automate workflow to free up IT time.

Meanwhile, IT hiring in India is expected to grow. The Indian Staffing Federation estimated in May last year, the industry would hire 8,00,000-10,00,000 techies by the end of 2023,  with firms such as Adobe, Amazon India, Infosys, 3i Infotech, LTIMindtree, among others, looking for tech talents, as per their website career page and job portals.

In an interview with Mint, published on 22 June, Debashis Chatterjee, chief executive of IRT services firm LTIMindtree, said that the company continues to recruit cyber security talent despite a drop in overall hiring across the organisation.

“There are niche skill requirements in the present market that our clients look for and are willing to spend — cyber security is one such area where the demand is persistent,” he said.

Another IT services firm Hexaware Technologies this week said it plans on hiring around 6,000 people and has 419 job openings posted on LinkedIn. The positions open are for its offices in Noida and Mumbai.

The demand for specific technology skills is also consistently rising across non-tech industries, the report published by IT staffing firm Quess IT Staffing, said in a report published in April, which stated industries such as  BFSI and telecom, energy and utilities, healthcare and life science, automotive and engineering, held a high demand share for tech talent.

The recently appointed CEO of Vedanta-Foxconn's emerging display business unit YJ Chen on Thursday said that the company is looking to recruit technology talent from around the world to manage the $4 billion manufacturing facility in Gujarat.

The IT hiring trend is expected to continue at a steady pace in the July-September quarter of the current fiscal, stated a ManpowerGroup Employment Outlook Survey of nearly 3,020 employers earlier this week (27 June). The report said, many as 49% report higher intentions for hiring, while 13% do not expect to expand their IT teams.