HCLTech has reported its Q1 FY26 results, revealing a slight dip in employee attrition and a renewed focus on expanding its workforce, even as overall headcount declined and profitability weakened.
For the quarter ending June 2025, the company’s attrition rate stood at 12.8 per cent, a wee bit less than the previous quarter. Attrition has been kind of stable, hovering between 12.5 and 13 per cent for over a year and a half now. The consistent reduction indicates improved employee retention through stronger engagement and internal career mobility.
Despite the lower attrition, HCL’s total headcount fell by 269, bringing the workforce to about 2.23 lakhs. The reduction, though minor, reflects a cautious hiring approach amidst global uncertainties in IT spending and project-execution delays.
However, HCL is preparing for a hiring ramp-up. The company recruited 1,984 freshers in Q1 and expects total hiring to grow by 15–20 per cent this fiscal year. The focus will be on roles in cloud computing, cybersecurity, data engineering, and artificial intelligence. The hiring push signals a strategic shift, aligning talent acquisition with digital transformation demands.
The company is choosing to focus quality hiring rather than volume, aligning recruitment with deal wins and sector demand in areas such as BFSI, healthcare and digital engineering.
The IT space, in general, is seeing firms tightening lateral hiring, managing bench strength, and investing in upskilling to navigate a slower growth environment. With no fixed hiring target shared yet, HCL appears cautiously optimistic about demand in the second half of FY26, especially across Europe and select US sectors.
