It rained jobs for IT professionals with the country’s top five software firms alone adding over 23,200 employees to their payrolls in the last quarter of 2006, while taking their total headcount to near 2,92,000.

The Fab Five of the Indian IT space — TCS, Infosys, Wipro, Satyam and HCL Technologies — hired a total of 23,265 people in the three-month period ended December 31, with TCS coming out with highest number of additions at 7,835. The collective employee strength of the country’s five biggest firms at the end of October-December quarter stood at 2,91,830.

The robust hiring momentum has virtually shrugged off the concerns related to soaring wages eating into the company’s profitability as all the five companies have reported impressive financial results for the quarter ended December 30, the experts feel.

TCS continued to maintain the lowest attrition rate in the industry at 10.8 per cent. At the end of the quarter, the total employee strength of the company was 83,500, with employees coming from 60 different nationalities.

The country’s second largest software exporter Infosys’ headcount reached 69,432 at the end of December 2006. Infosys added 6,092 employees this quarter at a gross level, of which 1,676 employees were with prior experience. The attrition rate increased slightly to 13.5 per cent compared to 12.9 per cent last quarter.

It plans to hire another 5,000 people in the next quarter, which will take the total number of people recruited for the year to 30,000.