More job cuts in India? Cognizant to expand local hiring in US

Firm to prune domestic costs through initiatives such as voluntary separation

Cognizant Technology Solutions plans to sharply increase local hiring in the US this year with increased demand for co-innovation and on-site presence from clients. The Nasdaq-listed technology services major said it would look at talent across local community colleges to big management universities to man different projects in the US.

Last month, when the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services opened the window for applications, Cognizant applied for "less than half" H1B visas compared with last year.

"We are evolving our workforce and delivery in the United States. Cognizant hired 4,000 US citizens in 2016, and in 2017 and beyond, we expect to significantly ramp up our US based workforce by hiring experienced professionals in the open market and by making more use of university programmes. We are shifting our workforce largely in response to clients' increasing need for co-innovation. But we still seek visas for highly-specialised and skilled talent...We expect to further reduce our need for these visas going forward. As part of our shift, we continue to expand our US delivery centres," Rajeev Mehta, President, Cognizant told analysts on Friday.

At the same time, the company has taken up initiatives such as the voluntary separation package, which was announced last week, for senior employees to optimise costs.

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"We are looking for opportunities to further optimise cost structures...We just launched earlier this week a voluntary separation package that programme will go till the end of Q2 and we will see the benefit of that in Q3," said Karen McLoughlin, chief financial officer, Cognizant.

The company is the second software provider after Infosys to announce increase in local hiring in the US. Cognizant, however, has not disclosed any numbers. Beyond the business shift towards digital, Donald Trump-led US administration's moves towards H1B visa restrictions have resulted in companies focusing on local hiring there.

Cognizant saw a 26 per cent growth in net profits to $557 million for the quarter ending March 31, 2017, while revenues grew by 10.7 per cent to $3.55 billion. ReadMore

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Latest News : Infosys chief executive Vishal Sikka (pictured) has cautioned that the tidal wave of automation and technology-fuelled transformation could make the traditional information technology services obsolete. And, asked employees to shift their behaviour to adopt to shifts in technology.

“The mountains ahead are tall ones. There is no other way but to get there and go... if we don’t, we will be made obsolete by the tidal wave of automation and technology-fuelled transformation that is almost upon us,” Sikka, the first non-founder chief executive, wrote in a New Year letter to employees.

Sikka, whose letter had the subject: ‘Answers are blowing in the wind,’ cautioned that most of the work done by firms such as Infosys can already be done with artificial intelligence (AI) systems.

“Our path forward is very clear – we need to harness the dual forces of automation and innovation. We must embrace automation to become more productive in the work that we do and with the resulting capacity, focus our attention upwards towards innovation, both for ourselves and our clients. The foundation for all of this is our culture, our values and especially our infrastructure for life-long learning,” he said. Read More

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“Tech Mahindra is no longer contesting to acquire Mphasis,” sources privy to the development told Business Standard. A company spokesperson declined to comment on the matter.

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Cognizant rings alarm bell for Indian IT services players

With Cognizant, which has so far defied the trend of moderate growth in information technology (IT) services sector, projecting lower growth in calendar year (CY) 2016, export-dependant Indian companies have a major reason to worry.

The Nasdaq-listed IT services company on Monday said it expects revenue to grow at 9.9–14.3 per cent, one of its lowest ever, and cautioned about spending cuts by the clients in financial services and healthcare sectors.

It has come as a surprise for many that Cognizant, which was known for best growth among its peers, has given outlook whose lower end trails the overall industry guidance issued by Nasscom. For CY16, Nasscom expects IT services to grow between 10-12 per cent, lower than the previous year.