Why Big Tech Layoffs Aren’t the End of the Road in India
Looking ahead to May 2025, hiring growth is stabilized at a healthy 8% y-o-y.
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Over the past four years, big tech companies in India have experienced a rollercoaster of hiring and firing. However, beneath the surface of what seems like chaos lies a more nuanced transformation, a shift toward an AI-powered, skill-based future where tech jobs aren’t disappearing; they’re evolving.
In May 2022, India’s tech hiring scene was on fire. Big Tech companies like Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta were aggressively scaling teams, lured by India’s vast talent pool and cost advantages.
Speaking to MIT SMR India, Pranay Kale, Chief Revenue & Growth Officer at talent platform foundit, said, “In May 2022, hiring was booming with an impressive 11% year-over-year growth… firms like Google, Amazon, and Microsoft were competing fiercely for top talent through lavish salary hikes and perks.”
Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Pune, and Delhi-NCR became battlegrounds for talent, with salaries rising and perks getting more extravagant. The hiring wave wasn’t just confined to metro cities. There were early signs of tech decentralization, tier-II cities like Coimbatore, Jaipur, and Kochi began to attract backend and shared services roles, thanks to lower operational costs and improving infrastructure.
Boom Meets Reality
By May 2023, the hiring climate had flipped. Global economic uncertainty, rising interest rates, and fears of a recession collided with the aftermath of pandemic-era overhiring. And the result was a massive -31% year-on-year (y-o-y) contraction in Big Tech hiring in India, foundit data showed. Bengaluru, the epicenter of India’s IT boom, was the hardest hit.
Tech giants tightened their purse strings, moved to cost-cutting mode, and unleashed a series of high-profile layoffs. Roles turned contract-based, hiring freezes were imposed, and profitability replaced growth as the new mantra.
Globally, the toll was even more staggering. Between 2022 and 2024, tech companies laid off over 690,000 people worldwide, with Indian offices witnessing close to 70,000 job cuts during the same period.
Here’s a snapshot of tech layoffs across the years by Teamlease Digital:
| Year | Global Layoffs | India Layoffs |
| 2022 | ~1,94,000 | ~18,000 |
| 2023 | ~2,64,220 | ~15,000–20,000 |
| 2024 | ~2,38,461 | ~37,000 |
| 2025 (till June) | ~83,239 | ~1,500 |
The AI Wave and Strategic Recovery
Yet again, by May 2024, the pendulum swung back, with purpose. This rebound wasn’t a return to the reckless expansion of 2022. Instead, hiring recovered strategically, growing 14% y-o-y, and is driven by surging demand for cloud computing, cybersecurity, and artificial intelligence talent.
“While not as frenzied as in 2022, this phase marked a return to strategic expansion, particularly in India’s thriving Global Capability Centers (GCCs),” Kale said.
The nature of hiring had evolved. It wasn’t about headcount anymore; it was about skills.
As generative AI, cloud platforms, and machine learning reshaped business needs, the type of roles being created began to change. Companies started prioritizing talent in chip design, AI ops, data annotation, and cloud architecture.
India’s tier-II cities emerged as unexpected winners in this new phase. Bhubaneswar became a hotspot for semiconductor design, Nagpur and Lucknow saw demand for AI training and data labeling, and improved remote work models made these cities viable for distributed teams.
The acceleration in demand was not just about technology; it was about geography. With government incentives like the development of IT parks in Madurai and Guwahati, India’s tech landscape is moving toward a more balanced, distributed future.
Looking Ahead
Looking ahead to May 2025, hiring growth is stabilized at a healthy 8% y-o-y. This signals a more mature, disciplined phase of expansion, where hiring aligns with long-term business needs rather than short-term market hype.
“While in the short term it may seem that many jobs and roles are reducing in the IT industry, it is actually shifting gears towards a more exciting, AI-powered future,” said Neeti Sharma, CEO of Teamlease, to MIT SMR India.
“From 2022 to now, over 780,000 tech jobs globally and almost 10% of those in India have been transformed by digitization. This requires talent with different skill sets in areas such as AI, cloud computing, security, and data.”
The future of tech work won’t be about sheer numbers but about building new things, products, systems, and platforms that lead the next wave of innovation. Metros like Bengaluru and Hyderabad will continue to lead in innovation and leadership roles, but tier-II cities will own critical pieces of the AI pipeline, such as data training, edge computing, silicon validation, and cloud infrastructure.
Reinvention Over Redundancy
Layoffs often dominate headlines, but the real story in Big Tech is one of reinvention. The Indian tech workforce is not shrinking, it’s transforming. What we’re witnessing is not a decline but a shift.
From maintaining systems to creating new ones. From traditional IT to intelligence-enabled tech. From metro-only operations to nationwide collaboration. Big Tech’s India playbook is evolving.
And for tech professionals across India, this is the moment to reskill, adapt, and seize the opportunities of an AI-first future.
