BANGALORE: The rupee appreciation looks to be hitting jobs in the technology sector. The industry's spends devoted to hiring have hit a speed breaker. According to industry observers and media analysts, the last few months have seen as much as a 50% decline in recruitment advertisements.

Several tier-1 tech firms that advertised 12 times across the country in a quarter has brought the frequency down to five. Domestic and MNC tech firms like TCS, Infosys, Wipro, Satyam, HCL, Patni, IBM, HP and Dell are all said to have embarked on a "conscious cost-cutting binge". The only exception is seen to be Accenture, which continues to spend heavily on print recruitment ads as the company has an ambitious mandate to increase its India strength.

Analysts say the decline in advertising is a consequence of increased utilisation of the bench (those sitting idly waiting for projects), and a greater dependence on employee referrals (on an average 30% of the entire IT hiring is done through this channel) and external hiring agencies.

Joydeep Raha, vice president (initiative) in advertising company Lowe, said, "IT firms today are extremely conscious about the utilisation levels of their bench staff to optimise productivity and increase profitability (which has been badly hit by the rupee appreciation). This has significantly brought down the size of the IT recruitment ad market."

Ajay Shroff, director in ad firm Pinxit Blue, said, "This scenario has resulted in an immediate business impact of 20 to 25% on ad agencies. Agencies that do not have a vertical spread could be the most hit, by up to 50% of their income. Also, the bring-the-buddy scheme (employee referrals) has become extremely popular, with some companies doubling or even trebling the referral bonuses."

Shroff said one employee was recently given a reward of Rs 1 lakh by his employer for referring his friend to work. "IT recruitment ads have become seasonal. Now, ad firms wait for increment/attrition months like June, July, August or January to put out the ads. This has started impacting our revenues adversely," said Soumya, director (accounts) at RK Swamy BBDO.

Quality of talent has always been a problem with recruitment ads, which drives up costs. "A single print ad can throw up 10,000 resumes at a time. But often, the employable ones in the lot could be barely 10. Imagine the time and energy we end up spending on screening these CVs" asked an HR manager of a large IT firm.