NEW DELHI: Here's some good news for techies: despite the global market slump, they are not being handed out pink slips - at least for now, by big players. However, for experienced professionals, retaining jobs and getting jobs may get tougher.

Call it tweaking the IT HR code, but here are some innovative steps that companies are taking to fight slowdown blues. Employee utilisation rates are up, the number of lateral hires is down, the number of campus hires has slowed down and wage hikes barely match inflation rate. That apart, companies are trying hard to develop a non-linear growth model, which seeks to delink revenue growth from manpower growth.

IT services companies insist that the focus will be on productivity increases and how best they can squeeze out more from their employees. For fresh engineers, this could translate into more time at work than play. And it could be bad news for experienced guys looking to jump jobs, as companies curb lateral intake. Also, freshers who just got campus offers may be asked to wait longer before they can report for either training or work.

"Companies continue to hire, though at slower rates," says Nasscom president Som Mittal. Employee utilisation rates have gone up by 4-5% across the industry while wage hikes were limited to around 8-11%.

The largest IT services company, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), plans to hire 30,000-35,000 this fiscal (out of this it has already hired 18,000), but is expanding the employee base to add more entry level staff rather than hire laterally. This simply means that while there may be some jobs for freshers, the experienced guys will find the going tough.