Everyone talks about India’s GCC hiring boom. However, our latest data shows that 47% of India’s GCCs did not grow their headcount last year. India’s GCC market is still a growth story, but that growth is coming from new centers rather than expansion inside the established ones.
Data from the inaugural 2026 HFS Research– ANSR Generative GCC Index 2026 throws interesting patterns when you look at which ones are hiring-
- Only 22% of centers older than ten years grew their headcount.
- Among those having more than half of their enterprise’s global technology workforce in India, only 29% grew.
- Only 50% of centers with AI embedded across delivery workflows grew, against 65% of those still running pilots.
- 1 in 10 centers actually shrank last year, while 81% of centers under five years old grew their headcount.
What does this imply?
- None of this means these centers are struggling. Many are absorbing more work with the same people, which is what an AI and automation-led operating model is meant to do.
- It also means that headcount growth no longer tells us much about how a GCC is performing, while budget approvals, board slides, and per-FTE pricing still depend on it.
My PoV is that the measure of your GCC needs to shift from headcount growth to what the center owns and decides without asking headquarters.
Read the full Data Viewpoint here: https://lnkd.in/eU7MwpK5
