Amid fears that the US financial crisis will effect hiring plans of outsourcing companies, India's fourth largest software firm Satyam [Get Quote] said on Thursday it is bullish on hiring and has no plans to recast its recruitment targets.

"We will not cut our hiring targets. This year we plan to recruit 12,000-15,000 people and we are well on target to achieve that," Satyam HR Head S V Krishnan told PTI.

However, he added that the company may postpone some of the new recruitments for next quarter.

Analyst following the sector feels that due to the slowdown in the US economy, the Indian IT companies, who mostly depend on the US market for their revenue, had postponed joining dates of new recruits, raising doubts about their future.

Krishnan assured that Satyam will honour every offer made to the candidates. Satyam currently has over 53,000 employees on its rolls.

Talking about reports that Satyam has fired 4,500 employees, the HR head said, "We have not asked anyone to leave the organisation."

"It is misreported. As part of our appraisal process we identify around five per cent of our associates in the performance improvement category and put them through a structured performance improvement programme.

"This practise exists for a number of years now. We take action on our bottom-most performers to keep the organisation's efficiencies tight. It is nothing new." he added.

Other IT companies like Patni and Wipro [Get Quote] have also carried out similar exercise for the non-performing employees.

He, however, agreed that a lot belt-tightening has been going on in the industry.

"Earlier, the industry used to give more time to the non-performers to improve their performance level but now companies are becoming less tolerant," Krishnan said.

Analysts also feel that with global slowdown and clients delaying decision making, IT firms are trying to cut their bench-strength. The focus is now on maximum utilisation of workforce.

Satyam also plans to increase its utilisation, which currently is over 80 per cent for offsite and over 96 per cent for onsite.

The bench-strength of Satyam was 5-7 per cent last year, but this year, the company is trying to keep it tight around 3-5 per cent, he added.

Talking about the future of its employees who were working on projects for the Lehman Brothers, he said, "The contract continues."

Satyam has an outsourcing deal with Lehman Brothers, involving less than 100 employees.

However, he added, that he had not received any formal communication from Lehman Brothers.

Satyam's scrip had dropped 5.57 per cent to an intra-day low of Rs 336.50 on the Bombay Stock Exchange on September 16, following concerns that the country's outsourcing sector will face the heat of the global financial crisis.