Info Edge sees silver lining for Indian IT firms in 'recessionary times'

A recession in the United States may be good for Indian tech firms for the longer term as a lot of work is then outsourced to India, Hitesh Oberoi, MD and CEO, Info Edge said on Monday.

“In the past, we have seen that India actually is the solution; whenever there is a recession in the US, for a while there is a lull in hiring but over time, more and more work is offshore to India," he told CNBC-TV18.

Oberoi believes that if that happens this time around too, there may be a slight dip in hiring for a quarter or two. "But, in the long-term it will be good for Indian companies because more and more work will be outsourced because US companies will want to cut cost,” he said.

Meanwhile, Info Edge CEO noted that tech or digital hiring is almost 50 percent of the company’s revenue with an increase in its share over the last few years as compared to 40-45 percent earlier.

Oberoi sees Bengaluru, Chennai, and Hyderabad as primary tech hiring markets, followed by and parts of Gurugram and Noida. "Share of these geographies and this segment, in our overall businesses, has increased over the last eight quarters because the pace of digitisation has increased globally,” he noted.

According to him, the April to June quarter of the fiscal was better than the preceding quarter and as for now, it remains unclear how Q3 and Q4 will pan out. "A lot will depend on what happens in the rest of the world. The IT market is not just an index to the local economy, it is an index to the global economy. It's even more index to the US economy and the rest of the world. So, a lot will depend on what happens to the US,” he said.

Oberoi added that while things have started settling down a bit, it is still very hard to hire good people. "It’s not easy to hire good people; people are becoming choosy, the startup scene has slowed down a little bit but there are still a lot of opportunities in the market for the right people with the right skills.”