Ramping up hiring in India; focus on freshers, says Accenture CEO Julie Sweet

New Delhi: IT services and consulting firm Accenture is ramping up its hiring efforts in India, with a continued focus on freshers, company CEO Julie Sweet has said.

Sweet, Accenture Chair and Chief Executive Officer, during an investor call, emphasised the company's commitment to recruiting new college graduates and refreshing its workforce pyramid.

She said a majority of these new hires will be concentrated in India, which is seen as a significant growth driver for the company as it heads into fiscal year 2025.

The company operates on a September-August fiscal calendar.

"We are hiring primarily in India...a lot of that hiring is technology in India, and of course it also addresses refreshing our pyramid at this time, so you've got kind of the new college graduates coming in, so there's really no change in our talent strategy.

"We hire all over the world, and in technology, which is a big driver of the growth that we're seeing now, and going into FY2025, that is a lot of hiring in India," Sweet said.

The IT major is steadily betting on GenAI and "reinventing" its services, she said, adding that Accenture's FY2024 growth was driven by its clients seeking to reinvent using tech, data, AI and new ways of working.

"We have continued to steadily increase our data and AI workforce reaching approximately 57,000 practitioners against our goal of 80,000 by the end of FY 2026. We invested in our people to continue to develop their marketable skills and to help us reinvent our services using GenAI," she said.

Accenture employees had approximately 44 million training hours this year, representing an increase of 10 per cent predominantly due to GenAI training, Sweet added.

Ireland-headquartered Accenture is one of the largest employers in the Indian IT services sector, with over 3,00,000 staff.

Its global employee count stands at 7,74,000.

Accenture reported revenues of $16.4 billion for the fourth quarter ending August 2024. This marks a 2.62 per cent increase from $15.99 billion in the year-ago period.

Revenues for fiscal 2024 came in at $64.90 billion, compared with $64.11 billion in the previous fiscal.

"FY 2024 was marked by a challenging market environment, and we have rapidly shifted to where our clients are buying - large reinventions that utilise the scale of Accenture's expertise and ecosystem relationships - and we have yet again put reinvention into action at Accenture with our significant investment and early leadership in what we believe will be the most transformative technology of the next decade, GenAI," Sweet said.