India’s technology sector is in the middle of a hiring freeze—but not for the reasons you might think. Beyond the headcount lies a major shift: companies aren’t just cutting costs, they are cutting ties with yesterday’s skills. This isn’t just a pause in recruitment—it’s a reset of priorities. 

A recent report by brokerage Emkay Global points to a muted outlook. Hiring in the IT services segment declined 2.5% year-over-year in March, marking the fourth decline in five months. BPO and IT-enabled services fared even worse with a 7.5% decline. Management commentary remains cautious, shaped by weak discretionary tech spending and client focus on cost-takeout programmes.  

Yet, this isn’t as simple as a demand drought. Firms are not merely trimming headcount; they are redefining what “talent” means in an AI-disrupted world. 

Julie Sweet, CEO of Accenture, put it plainly in a recent podcast interview to Fortune magazine. When interviewing candidates, she now asks: “What have you learned in the last six months?” Those who can’t answer—even with something as simple as learning to bake bread—are shown the door. “If they can’t answer that question,” she said, “we know they’re not a learner.”

While traditional IT roles stagnate, demand for niche skills like artificial intelligence/machine learning engineering, and cybersecurity is surging. Naukri.com’s JobSpeak Index for February, shows strong growth in AI/ML hiring, up 21% year-over-year, while traditional IT hiring remains flat. 

A Teamlease report published in February said deep-tech roles seem to be emerging career paths, including clinical bioinformatics associate, robotics system engineer, sustainability analyst, prompt engineer, AI and machine learning engineer, cloud engineer and cybersecurity analyst.

Employers still need talent—especially those who can deploy generative AI tools, adapt to ambiguous problems, and work across disciplines. However, many workers trained in outdated models don’t qualify for these roles anymore.

In a world reshaped by generative AI, cloud computing, and rapid digital transformation, employers no longer want static skill sets. They want intellectual agility. They want curiosity. They want candidates who are evolving without waiting for formal training.

The disconnect lies in India’s education-industrial complex. The country produces millions of engineering graduates each year, but many are trained for roles already being automated. Colleges are stuck with legacy coding languages, while employers crave deep-tech skills. The result? A workforce stranded between Java and Generative AI. 

Strategic Reshuffling, Not Retreat
Large tech companies are still hiring—but selectively and strategically. Infosys, Wipro and Tata Consultancy Services plan to collectively onboard more than 70,000 freshers in 2025-26, but with a twist. These hires are aimed at long-term pyramid restructuring, not near-term growth. At the same time, firms are improving utilisation rates, focusing on lateral hires only when absolutely necessary, and doubling down on automation to do more with less.

When they hire freshers—who are cheaper to onboard and easier to retrain—it’s often with an eye toward restructuring rather than expanding delivery capacity outright. However, without structural reforms in skilling infrastructure or curricula modernisation at universities, even freshers may struggle to meet the new employer expectations.

So what should tech professionals do?

The message is clear: reskilling isn’t optional. It’s foundational. Employees—and even students—must now build learning into their daily routines. 

The crisis extends beyond corporate boardrooms. India’s skilling infrastructure needs to align with market needs. Platforms like SWAYAM and NPTEL must be modernised into real-time, employer-integrated learning hubs. Universities must prioritise industry-relevant, project-based learning over outdated syllabus. Public-private partnerships will be critical in developing modular skilling frameworks.

The Bottom Line
It is thus a wake-up call for policymakers and professionals alike. If India hopes to remain competitive in the
global tech economy, it must prioritise learning agility over legacy qualifications across all levels of its workforce.

Without reforms, both freshers and mid-career professionals may struggle to face an unspoken ultimatum—upskill or risk irrelevance. Experience used to mean decades of expertise, now it could risk meaning decades of stagnation. 

The hiring freeze, then, is not the crisis—it’s the symptom.

If anything, this moment presents an opportunity: for institutions to modernise, for individuals to retool, and for India’s tech economy to move up the value chain—from service delivery to solution design. But none of it is possible unless we acknowledge the core issue.

For India, the stakes are higher. Lose this race, and its tech sector risks becoming the call centre of the AI era. To revisit Julie Sweet’s question one last time: What have we learned in the last six months? If the answer is “not much,” we should not be surprised when job portals turn silent.