Capgemini plans to hire about 30,000 people in India in 2021, a 25% increase from last year. The development highlights the French IT services provider and consulting firm’s bullish business prospects on the back of a pandemic-induced surge in demand for digital solutions.

“The hiring reflects our strong revenue growth guidance of 7-9% for 2021," Ashwin Yardi, CEO of Capgemini in India, said in an interview to Mint.

He added the people will be a 50:50 mix of both freshers and laterals.

With about 125,000 employees on its rolls in India, the country is the single-largest talent hub for the IT services major, which has a total headcount of about 270,000. Last year, the company hired about 24,000 people in India.

Yardi added that this year’s hiring will be across emerging digital skills such as cloud, engineering and research and development, AI, 5G, edge computing, and cybersecurity. With increasing focus on emerging technologies, digital and cloud together account for more than 50% of the company's business, growing over 20% in 2019.

With these plans, Capgemini becomes the latest IT company to announce major expansion plans in the workforce this year. In this direction, last month, it kickstarted 2021 with 19,000 open positions in India. Meanwhile, home-grown Infosys Ltd plans to hire 24,000 college graduates in the country in 2021-22, while Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp., which has over 200,000 people in India, expects to hire more than 23,000 people in 2021. Last month, HCL Technologies’ global IT development center also announced plans of organizing a virtual “Mega Recruitment Drive” in Andhra Pradesh’s Vijayawada to hire around 1,000 freshers and experienced professionals.