Indicating a slowdown in the hiring activity in the information technology sector in the country, India's third largest software firm Infosys [Get Quote] said that it plans to hire about 25,000 people in the current fiscal, nearly 29 per cent less than the total recruitments in the last financial year.

The IT bellwether had recruited 35,000 people in 2007-08. "We are planning to hire 25,000 people in the current fiscal and among them, 18,000 would be hired through campus recruitment," Infosys senior vice president & group head of human resources, Nandita Gurjar said on Tuesday.

Pointing out that the firm has not made any changes in hiring plans due to global slowdown, she said that the impact on hiring could be visible in the last two quarters of the current fiscal.

"The third and fourth quarters would be the time when the firm tends to tighten up its hiring," she added.

Noting that the company would have liked more people to come in, Nandita Gurjar said the reason for lower numbers is not just due to economic slowdown but many other factors including infrastructure and business plans.

According to statistics provided by the firm, it had 3,372 trainees for the quarter ended June 30, 2008 whereas the same stood at 5,070 in the corresponding period a year ago.

On attrition rates, Nandita Gurjar said that the levels have come down in recent times and is hovering little over 13 per cent. As on the first quarter of this fiscal, the attrition was at 13.6 per cent, which is marginally lower than 13.7 per cent in the year-ago period.

Infosys, in a first of its kind initiative, would be introducing promotion for its employees twice-a-year. "For the first time, we would be offering promotions twice-a-year and it would be implemented later this year," she said.

The new policy would not add to our wage pressures as the process has already been factored into our HR structure, she added.

On salary increments for employees, Nandita Gurjar noted the hike this year has been in the range of 11-13 per cent while the wage raise stood at 12-15 per cent in the previous year.

Responding to a query on giving pink slips to underperformers, she said that on an average 200-300 employees are given the same. However, we enroll such people in our performance improvement programme for about three months before taking any such step, she added.