IT firms must renew efforts to boost women's representation, experts say
Mint analysis, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Infosys, Wipro and HCL Technologies saw their combined workforce drop by over 60,000 in FY24, while the overall share of women in these four companies remained unchanged at 35.5% as of 31 March, compared to 35.6% a year ago. While the share of women employees at these four firms remained about the same over the past year, their absolute number fell 22,498.
Aparna Mittal, founder of the Samāna Centre for Gender, Policy and Law, said, “It is possible that the vigour with which the IT sector increased its diversity quotient from small numbers to 35% has now plateaued. A certain psychological barrier comes in where companies become complacent because they have a more diverse workforce than many other firms in India." Also read: Chart Beat: Muted hiring trends paint a grim picture of IT sector Although the IT services sector has been recruiting en masse from engineering campuses, they need to study the reasons why women employees quit, and whether enough women are hired to replace those that leave, Mittal added.
At TCS, the share of women employees remained nearly flat at 35.6% as of 31 March from 35.7% a year ago, with 5,300 fewer women in the workforce. At Infosys, the share of women employees declined from 39.4% to 39.3%, with a net reduction of more than 10,000.
At Wipro, the share of women in the workforce increased from 36% to 36.6% over the same period, but their absolute number was down about 7,000. Also read: Telcos hanging up on tech spending will hurt IT firms HCL Tech, meanwhile, saw the share of women employees fall marginally from 29.2% to 29.1%, but their absolute number increased as the company did not see overall attrition in FY24; its workforce grew by 1,537
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