Happy Friday! Oracle has started pulling back campus offers from top institutes, leaving students caught in the crossfire. This and more in today’s ETtech Morning Dispatch.
Also in the letter:
■ Mid-tier IT pulls ahead
■ RDI fund disbursal
■ Uber’s India push continues
After mass layoffs, Oracle pulls campus offers at IITs and NITs
US tech major Oracle has revoked more than 50 job and internship offers to students at top institutes, including the IITs and NITs, following recent layoffs and restructuring.
Driving the news:
- At IIT-Kanpur, three full-time and one summer internship offer out of 29 made by Oracle have been pulled, according to people in the know.
- Two offers each have been withdrawn at MNNIT-Allahabad and IIT-BHU, while three offers have been revoked at IIT-Delhi.
- At IIT Hyderabad, five of the 23 full-time and internship offers have been scrapped.
- At IIT-Roorkee, four of 14 offers have been revoked.
Also Read: Oracle layoffs: AI pivot triggers 10,000 job cuts in India
Students left in limbo: The move comes at a critical juncture. Placement season is winding down, tech hiring remains subdued, and affected students are scrambling for alternatives.
The sudden reversals, blamed on “internal restructuring and headcount-related challenges,” have stirred fresh anxiety on campuses. With most hiring cycles over, finding comparable roles is proving difficult, placement officials said.
Also Read: Over 100,000 jobs cut in tech so far in 2026 as AI drives layoffs at Amazon, LinkedIn, others
Institutes step in:
- Under All IITs Placement Committee (AIPC) norms, companies that rescind offers are expected to pay three months’ salary as compensation.
- IIT-Guwahati’s placement head, John Jose, confirmed that discussions with Oracle are ongoing and the matter could be escalated.
- “The first priority is to secure alternative jobs for impacted students,” officials said.
Also Read: Engineering colleges counter IT hiring slowdown with smarter strategies
D2C brands feel the pinch as consumers cut spending
Direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands are facing a double whammy: shrinking consumer spending and rising costs.
Why it matters: D2C brands are being squeezed as higher input and logistics costs collide with slowing demand. Analysts expect consumer spending to fall 5–6% over the next quarter, while founders across fashion, grooming, and food brands say customers are already pulling back on discretionary purchases.
Also Read: D2C brands tweak packaging as West Asia conflict pushes up costs
The pressure points:
- Over the past few months, the cost of key packaging materials — such as aluminium cans and glass perfume bottles — has climbed sharply, and a likely increase in fuel prices could push logistics costs even higher.
- At the same time, consumers are turning cautious, trimming basket sizes and postponing non-essential purchases.
- Analysts warn that smaller startups with weaker balance sheets and ongoing cash burn will struggle more to absorb these costs than larger, better-funded brands.
What’s next: Upcoming sales events on Amazon, Flipkart, and Myntra may offer a short-lived demand bump, but analysts say shoppers are becoming more price-conscious and increasingly strategic about when they spend.
Also Read: Inflation in driver’s seat likely to stall discretionary spend
IT services giants in a bind as mid-caps capture growth
Mid-tier IT services firms are outpacing larger rivals, posting 7–28% year-on-year revenue growth (in constant currency) in the March quarter.
Tier-I players lagged: Infosys, HCLTech, and Tech Mahindra grew just 0.6–3.9%, while TCS and Wipro reported revenue declines of 2.4% and 1.6%, respectively.
More on this: Phil Fersht, chief executive of US-based IT advisory firm HFS Research, said mid-tier firms are zeroing in on “specific growth pockets such as cloud engineering, AI-led modernisation, BFSI, healthcare, data, and platform services, where enterprise demand remains strong.”
- Coforge’s travel vertical grew more than 50% year-on-year, despite geopolitical headwinds.
- Persistent Systems’ BFSI segment rose nearly 25% year-on-year.
Also Read: IT's revenue per employee up in productivity win
Lean teams: Mid-tier firms are scaling without aggressive hiring. In the March quarter:
- Persistent Systems added 791 employees.
- Coforge added 436 employees.
- Mphasis added nearly 96 employees.
- LTIMindtree reduced headcount by 8.
“Their size is an advantage,” said ISG’s Namratha Dharshan, pointing to stable hiring alongside strong revenue growth.
Yes, but: This momentum comes with trade-offs. Experts note that “part of the current growth story is tied to margin sacrifice,” and profitability will hinge on how well firms convert AI-led efficiencies and cross-selling into durable gains.
Also Read: Tepid FY27 revenue growth awaits top 5 IT services companies
Other Top Stories By Our Reporters
Centre’s tech development board starts RDI fund disbursal: The Technology Development Board (TDB), one of the two second-level fund managers for the Rs 1 lakh crore RDI fund, has started disbursing the first tranche from its corpus.
Uber to add two new tech centres in India: Uber is set to launch two new tech centres, in Bengaluru and Hyderabad, by the end of 2027, chief executive Dara Khosrowshahi said at a townhall in the company’s Bengaluru office on Thursday.
Shadowfax operating revenue up 74% YoY in Q4: New-age logistics firm Shadowfax’s operating revenue increased 74% year-on-year (YoY) to Rs 1,237 crore in Q4FY26 from Rs 712 crore a year ago.
Global Picks We Are Reading
■ Americans do not want AI data centers in their backyards (The Verge)
■ How AI mania is disguising big companies’ hit from Iran war (FT)
■ Why ‘smart’ products have started to look like the dumb choice (NYT)
