Demand for top automotive tech professionals on the rise

Tata Elxsi and KPIT Technologies - two of the top Indian design and technology service providers to the automotive and related industries are on a hiring spree. This is happening as a result of robust demand that has come after almost two years of stagnation due to pandemic, supply challenges among others. However, some other business sectors are not doing so well and global giants like Microsoft, Apple, Google, and Amazon among others continue to lay-off employees amid fears of a global recession due to the current geo-political situation and ongoing war between Ukraine and Russia.

Tata Elxsi, a division of the Mumbai-based Tata Group, hired 1,532 new people in last three months, representing a 15 percent (quarter-over-quarter) QoQ growth. 1,200 freshers and about 350 lateral hires were included in the total. The company intends to hire an additional 750–1000 freshers in H2FY23 after previously hiring 2,000 freshers in FY23.

Utilisation levels have decreased from recent highs of 83 to 84 percent to 79 percent as a result of the new hires. The management anticipates that steady-state utilisation will continue to be at 80 percent in the future. Tata Elxsi's revenue for the Q2FY23 stood at Rs. 763.2 crore, with the lateral hiring transportation sector accounting for around 41.5 percent of the company's segment mix.

Tata Elxsi experienced supply-side difficulties in Q2FY23, particularly in mid and senior management levels due to significant deal inflows and stretched utilisation levels in previous quarters. Although onsite attrition increased at the organisation, overall attrition decreased by 30bps (basis points) QoQ to 18.7 percent. As a result, the company is making investments in and training programmes to increase its leadership in the technology, sales, and delivery functions. Basis points, also referred to as "bps" are a unit of measurement used in finance to indicate how much something's value has changed by percentage.

Manoj Raghavan CEO and MD Tata Elxsi said: "For us, this has been a quarter of investing strongly in growth for the future". He added the company is proactively investing in resources, looking at the next 4-6 quarters due to a strong business pipeline from the areas of its operations, particularly in the automotive and health sector. 

In the automotive and transportation sectors, Tata Elxsi collaborates with major OEMs and suppliers and provides R&D, design, and product engineering services from conception to launch. It provides domain expertise in connected infotainment, autonomous driving, telematics, powertrain, body & chassis electronics, in addition to digital technologies such AI, analytics, cloud, and IoT.

Likewise, Pune-based KPIT Technologies which is into development of software defined vehicles in the automotive and mobility ecosystem to the automotive and mobility ecosystem for making software-defined vehicles a reality.  According to Kishor Patil, Co-founder, CEO and MD, KPIT, the company has witnessed increase in its headcount.

KPIT during Q1FY23 and Q2FY23 saw its headcount growing by 11 percent and 8 percent respectively, translating into around 1,000 hirings per quarter. The company's current global employee strength stands at over 10,000. "We have a healthy pipeline with a couple of mega engagements expected to get closed in the coming 3-4 months. We have thus raised our FY23 growth outlook to 31-32 percent. The organic growth outlook is 200+ bps higher than the higher end of the 18 percent-21 percent outlook at the beginning of the year” Patil said.