By Surbhi Misra
May 21 (Reuters) – Indian companies are increasingly turning to contract and outsourced hiring as AI related uncertainty has firms rethinking their workforce planning, a top executive at staffing firm TeamLease Services said on Thursday.
Firms across sectors are slowing hiring and reassessing headcount needs as they experiment with AI-led automation, even as India remains a key global hiring market for multinational companies and global capability centres, Chief Financial Officer Ramani Dathi told Reuters in an interview.
“Firms that cut staff (numbers) by 50% after adopting AI tools were coming back within months saying they still needed people to manage them,” Dathi said, adding that the company was advising clients to keep 20%-30% of their workforce on outsourced or variable models.
The comments highlight a broader shift in hiring, with companies pivoting to flexible staffing and AI-led workforce realignments even as demand grows for specialised tech talent and GCCs expand beyond IT roles.
A report by job search portal Indeed and IT industry body Nasscom released on Thursday found nearly all organisations expect their 2026 workforce strategy to centre on AI-related or AI-supported roles, while 40% expect a major workforce rejig.
Teamlease, which manages more than 340,000 associates and trainees, said it is currently able to fill only about 30% of open positions from clients because of mismatches on salary expectations, location preferences and required skills.
Nearly one-third of TeamLease’s GCC workforce are now in non-IT roles, Dathi said.
The company is also seeing rising demand for cybersecurity professionals with AI specialization, with firms willing to pay 30%-40% salary premiums for such talent, she added.
The trend mirrors broader industry demand, with the Indeed-Nasscom report showing nearly two thirds of employers across industries had increased hiring for AI-related roles over the past year, led by sectors such as banking, finance services, insurance and telecommunications.
(Reporting by Surbhi Misra in Bengaluru; editing by Chandini Monnappa and Ronojoy Mazumdar)
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