Telcos may increase their headcount by a fourth this fiscal

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

telcos are expected to add up to 25% more to their existing headcount in FY24, on the back of a 35% addition in FY23, as they double down on 5G coverage expansion and monetisation and deepen 4G coverage. Industry executives and experts said hiring activity by the three telcos picked up in FY23 after a slowdown in FY22 as the pressures of the pandemic wore off.

«5G has played a big role (in the hiring activity) as there were a lot of 'point-in-time' jobs created during the year. This, coupled with the digitisation efforts by enterprises, led to an increase in telecom needs (of enterprises),» Sekhar Garisa, chief executive, staffing firm FoundIt (formerly Monster), said.

Overall headcount in the three telcos — Reliance Jio, Vodafone Idea and Bharti Airtel — increased nearly 35% on-year to 175,000, according to data provided in their respective annual reports. Jio's total headcount at FY23 end was 95,326, Airtel's 64,407 and Vodafone Idea's was 15,604, according to company disclosures.

Hiring activity by telcos was intense for profiles like network engineers, network architects, cloud computing experts, data scientists, data analysts, and cyber security specialists, staffing experts said.«The key areas witnessing hiring growth are IoT/IIoT, network infrastructure, network upgradation, network migration, and network security, among others. Most of the profiles in these domains are also reported to command about 12% higher pay packages,» said Sachin Alug, founder, staffing firm NLB Services.

FY23 also saw an increase in contractual hiring by telcos like Vodafone Idea and Airtel. The Sebi mandated Business Responsibility and Sustainability Report provided by the telcos in their annual reports for FY23 indicates that Airtel's