Active technology job openings in India stood at roughly 103,000 in January 2026, according to workforce analytics firm Xpheno. That figure is 24% lower than January 2025 and represents the second-weakest demand reading in five years. The top five Indian IT firms combined added just around 4,800 net employees in the first quarter of FY26, a sharp contrast to the mass hiring cycles of the pandemic era.

The Collapse of the Fresher Pipeline

The most dramatic shift is at the entry level. IT sector intake of fresh graduates dropped from approximately 600,000 in FY22 to around 120,000 in FY25, an 80% decline over three years. The economics are blunt: onboarding 10,000 freshers carries a salary bill of roughly 400 crore rupees annually, and companies operating under current margin pressure are unwilling to build benches they cannot immediately bill out.

"The Indian tech sector seems to have caught a cold in late 2022 and continues to struggle with a low-to-no recovery trajectory," said Kamal Karanth, co-founder of Xpheno.

TCS cut more than 12,000 positions and froze senior-level hiring. Oracle India shed approximately 12,000 roles. Wipro and Tech Mahindra made minimal net additions. Only Infosys moved against the trend, announcing a target of 20,000 fresher hires. Industry observers, however, note that hiring announcements made at the start of a fiscal year often do not fully materialise. "Hiring numbers are announced at the start of the year to assure investors, not all materialize into jobs," said Harpreet Singh Saluja, an industry representative quoted by BusinessToday.

The structural read matters here. This is not a cyclical trough waiting for demand to return. The traditional Indian IT model, which involved hiring large graduate cohorts, training them on the bench, and deploying them on client projects, is being retired. Companies now want lateral hires with specific skills in cloud infrastructure, AI orchestration, and agent-based system design. "Skills demand has shifted from mass hiring to value-driven, niche talent acquisition with the right skills," said Puneet Arora of Biz Staffing Comrade.

The resulting labour market is splitting into two speeds. Elite AI and machine learning specialists command salaries around 35 lakh rupees per year, while developers whose skills are tied to legacy stacks face stagnation or displacement.

Not everything is contracting. Global Capability Centres (GCCs), the in-house India operations that multinationals build outside the traditional IT services model, recorded 13% month-on-month growth and 7% year-on-year growth in January 2026. For blockchain and Web3 developers in India, the GCC expansion represents a meaningful hiring channel outside the traditional TCS and Infosys pipeline. Tier-2 and Tier-3 city hiring grew 30% year-on-year, even as Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and Pune saw sharp declines. India's AI talent pool is projected to reach 1.25 million professionals by 2027, representing about 16% of global AI talent, according to industry projections. The story is one of recomposition, not terminal decline.

Polymarket's IPL Play Hits a Legal Wall

On the crypto side, US-based prediction market platform Polymarket opened 101 active markets tied to the 2026 Indian Premier League season. The flagship "2026 IPL Champion" market has traded over $137,700 in volume, with Mumbai Indians leading at a 28% implied probability and Royal Challengers Bengaluru at 15%.

The timing reflects a broader push. Polymarket's cumulative on-chain trading volume has surpassed $62 billion, with a record $7 billion processed in February 2026 alone. The platform has also added Chinese-language support as part of a systematic Asian expansion, underscoring that its regional interest extends well beyond opportunistic market listings.

The platform recently partnered with Circle to migrate from bridged USDC to native USDC on the Polygon blockchain, a move intended to establish institutional-grade settlement. "Using USDC supports a consistent, dollar-denominated settlement standard that enhances market integrity as participation grows," said Polymarket founder and CEO Shayne Coplan in the February 5 announcement.

The problem is access. India's Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology had blocked 8,376 URLs connected to online betting and gambling as of March 28, 2026. Jio and other major ISPs actively block the Polymarket domain. Even VPN-based access carries enforcement risk under the current regulatory regime.

India's Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act (PROGA 2025) classifies platforms where users stake crypto on future outcomes as illegal gambling, and FEMA rules prohibit converting rupees to stablecoins for offshore speculative activity.

This creates an obvious tension. IPL, Indian general elections, and RBI rate decisions are among the most culturally relevant categories for South Asian users on Polymarket. Yet the users with the highest natural interest in those markets are largely locked out.

A Regulatory Signal Worth Watching

The most consequential development for the regional Web3 ecosystem may be a short statement from the Reserve Bank of India on April 2, 2026. RBI officials said the central bank is exploring specific guidelines to address prediction market platforms, citing concerns about their rapid spread. The framing is notable: the language appears to suggest movement toward a framework rather than an outright ban, though that reading reflects this publication's inference from the RBI's stated position rather than a direct commitment from the central bank.

Adding to the stakes, a venture capital fund backed by the CEOs of Polymarket and Kalshi was announced in March 2026 to accelerate prediction market infrastructure globally. India's regulatory posture is increasingly relevant to that investment thesis.

For India's Web3 developers and entrepreneurs, that distinction matters considerably. A regulated onshore prediction market vertical tied to cricket, elections, and macroeconomic outcomes would represent a potentially large addressable market with no current compliant incumbent. Whether regulators move in that direction, and on what timeline, is the question the industry will be watching through the remainder of 2026.