Mastek CEO on No Staff Cuts Amid Tech Job Fears

Mumbai, Jul 31 (PTI) Mid-tier IT company Mastek is not targeting any reduction in its workforce due to ongoing shifts in the tech world, a top official said on Thursday.

The company has seen a reduction in the overall staffing to 4,800 from 5,500 a year-ago due to attrition and has not replaced many of the roles, its chief executive Umang Nahata told PTI.

He said the attrition was "largely" voluntary, hinting that there may have been some cases where it may be involuntary in nature.

"We have seen a reduction in the overall employees and we have not replaced the talent with hiring. However, we do not have any plans of reducing workforce by 2 per cent or 5 per cent," he said.

The comments come days after sector leader TCS stunned all by an announcement to reduce the number of jobs by 2 per cent or 12,000 people, which has led to concerns about the future of tech jobs amid increased adoption of artificial intelligence and automation.

Going ahead, the company is aiming for a mid to high double-digit revenue growth on the back of healthy performance in the UK and North American markets, he said, adding that the effort is to increase the revenue per resource.


Nahata said almost the entire work force is trained in AI-related skills now, and almost entire work can be classified as "digital" in nature.

In the April-June period, it has signed deals of USD 16 million revenue potential, which are 100 per cent AI-related deals, he said, adding that the effort of the company is to target the AI segment in a novel way.

Amid worries over returns on investment from AI deployment and difficulties selecting the right platforms, it is concentrating on offering AI adoption services which will be outcome-based to the mid-tier clients who may not typically engage with big system integrators or consultants.

The company may look at tuck-in acquisitions of companies having complementarities going ahead, Nahata said, acknowledging that zeroing in on the right target is very difficult given the changing nature of technology.

The company celebrated 30 years of listing on the bourses on Thursday, with the management ringing the bell at the country's largest stock exchange, NSE.

When asked about the corrections in the company stock, which has declined substantially since December, Nahata said the issues are with perception and not performance, and even the multiples the share is trading at is low when compared with peers.

The Mastek share closed 2.10 per cent down at Rs 2,415.95 apiece on the BSE on Thursday, as against a 0.36 per cent correction on the benchmark.