Infosys, a key player in the IT services sector, has launched a 'power programme' as part of its campus placement push, giving salary of up to Rs 9 lakh per year to chosen universities, according to two persons familiar with the matter. This is a huge boost above the company's regular entry-level fresher pay packages, which typically range between Rs 3-3.5 lakh.

A source told ET: "The focus of these categories of hiring is on coding and software challenges, programming skill testing and other specialized skill tests for both tests and interviews." They continued: "For Infosys, these pay packages offered are between Rs 4-6.5 lakh and Rs 9 lakh."

Infosys, a key player in the IT services sector, has launched a 'power programme' as part of its campus placement push, giving incentives of up to Rs 9 lakh per year to chosen universities, according to two persons familiar with the matter. This is a huge boost above the company's regular entry-level fresher pay packages, which typically range between Rs 3-3.5 lakh.

Starting pay for freshers at top IT firms such as TCS and Infosys generally vary between Rs 3 and 4 lakh. However, due to the present low demand climate and bad macroeconomic conditions, IT organizations are shifting their attention to acquiring specialized trained individuals in areas such as cloud computing, AI/ML, and cybersecurity to work on the growing number of digital transformation projects.

This effort is akin to Tata Consultancy Services' 'Prime' programme, which was established last year and provides targeted hiring of freshers for software development roles with annual wages ranging from Rs 9-11 lakh. TCS has broadened the scope of 'Prime' this year to include emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), generative AI (GenAI), and machine learning (ML).

After a roughly four-quarter downturn, Infosys expects to employ 15,000-20,000 grads in FY25, whereas TCS expects to hire about 40,000 freshers, in line with the previous year's hiring rates.

TCS presently employs freshers in three categories: 'Ninja', which offers packages around Rs 3.6 lakh, 'Digital', which gives packages around Rs 7.5 lakh, and 'Prime'. TCS and Infosys did not react to calls for comment till press time on Monday.

In the post-earnings conference call last month, Infosys CFO Jayesh Sanghrajka stated, "As you know, in the previous several quarters, we have shifted to an agile recruiting basis. That basically implies we hire freshmen from both on and off campus."

Over the last year, the slowing activity of the $250 billion technology services sector has forced major software exporters, which are known for mass recruiting engineers, to trim their headcounts. During fiscal 2024, India's top five IT corporations cut their workforce numbers by more than 70,000.

TCS improved in the June quarter with 5,452 new employees, although its net employee count had declined for the preceding three quarters. For the first time in 19 years, the Tata subsidiary and IT bellwether recorded an annual workforce reduction in FY24, down 13,249 from FY23.

Infosys also reduced its staff by about 2,000 from April to June, reducing its total number of employees to 315,332. HCLTech reported hiring 1,078 new employees in the first quarter of FY25, compared to 3,096 in the previous quarter.

During its earnings call last month, Infosys stated that it will restart campus placements and off-campus fresher recruiting for the current fiscal year. The top four IT businesses in the nation are likely to hire over 82,000 new employees in FY25, with HCLTech and Wipro aiming to hire 10,000 and up to 12,000, respectively.