The survey, based on the views of senior HR Managers was undertaken to test sentiments in the IT industry, a sector that is most sensitive among other industries to global market movements. This survey comes at a time when the industry is looking to understand how deep or long-lasting the impact of the slowdown will be.

However, one thing, which is evident from this survey, is that, people at the top and middle level are likely to be fired, which automatically rings the bells for the junior level executives. Under any given circumstances, targets have to be achieved, which is primarily carried out by the professionals at the starting level of the management pyramid.

The findings of the survey suggest that industry is today better prepared to deal with the current slowdown as compared to 2008. As many as 62.9 per cent of the respondents do not expect the global economic scenario to impact hiring plans. While 37.1 per cent of HR heads surveyed do expect to cut back on hiring, interestingly only 8.1 per cent of the respondents expected the slowdown to have any long-term impact.

The four major trends that emerged from the survey are as follows:

Trend 1 – Majority of companies are expected to proceed with their hiring plans for FY2011-12

• 62.9 per cent of the respondents will not reduce hiring at all as a result of the global economic slowdown

•29.0 per cent of the respondents expect to scale down hiring plans by up to 20 per cent over the next 6 months

•A small minority expect to reduce hiring by over 30 per cent

Trend 2 - The hiring outlook in North and South India is more optimistic than in the western region

•64.7 per cent and 72.7 per cent of respondents in the Delhi NCR and Bangalore respectively indicated that hiring plans will not be affected

•In contrast, only 33.3 per cent of the companies in Mumbai anticipate that the global economic scenario will not impact hiring plans

 Trend 3 – Those organisations that plan to reduce hiring expect the impact to be felt across all levels

•69.2 per cent of companies who expect to reduce hiring believe that it will have an impact across all levels

•26.9 per cent indicated that the impact will be higher on middle and senior management hiring

•The impact on entry-level and junior hiring will be marginal

Trend 4 – Impact of economic slowdown over the longer term is expected to be limited

•91.9 per cent of the respondents believe that the impact will be limited to the next 6 months; only 8.1per cent expect any long-term fall-out

•4.9 per cent expect that the impact will be felt over the next 2 years

•3.2 per cent of all respondents expect that hiring will be impacted over a 2-5 year period

In his response to the survey findings, Uday Sodhi, CEO, of the portal that led the survey was said that, “The hiring outlook for the IT industry is holding steady and feedback from companies indicates that they are better geared to deal with the challenges ahead. The company has seen good traction in terms of IT jobs for mid-management and senior candidates over the last 6 months and companies on our job portal are going ahead with hiring decisions.”