Cognizant Hiring on Track, Plans Wage Hikes

New Delhi, Jul 31 (PTI) Cognizant on Thursday affirmed that its hiring plans for the full-year 2025 are proceeding as planned, as the Nasdaq-listed IT services company outlined its intent to roll out wage hikes during the second half of the year, though it did not disclose the specific timing.

Cognizant's total headcount stood at 343,800 as on June 30, 2025. The company, which follows the January-December as its fiscal year, added 7,500 employees on an aggregate basis in the first two quarters this year.

Notably, as much as 30 of its code are being written by machines.

While the company did quantify the scale of hirings in June 2025 quarter, the top management in an earnings call said the second quarter saw "sizeable" additions. The full-year target of 15,000 and 20,000 freshers intake is unchanged, the company said, adding that it is progressing on track so far as those plans are concerned.

To a question on wage hikes that were widely expected in August, Jatin Dalal, Chief Financial Officer of the company, said, "...you know the environment that we are in, there is the macro (factor) at play, and uncertainty, which I spoke about in the earnings call... Given that we have not yet taken a decision on the salary increase, our endeavour is to cover a vast majority of our employees during the second half of this year, and as and when we decide we will let our employees know".

The timing of the same is yet to be finalised, he said.

Cognizant said AI and agentic solution are unlocking new client spends, and added that it remains upbeat and excited about the future. The number of AI projects have zoomed to 2,500 from 1,400 in the quarter before that.

"We're very optimistic about the future of IT services. As much as productivity gets you to do more for less, and there's a necessity there, we equally believe as these new spend cycles get unlocked, the total addressable spend is going to be much more. So we're very excited about the possibilities of what agentic could do," Cognizant CEO Ravi Kumar S said.