The country’s second-largest information technology company Infosys on Friday said it will hire 20,000 people this year, adding that reports about job losses are overstated.

“I think all the news about job losses is really overstated. In Infosys itself last year, we recruited more than 20,000 people, and this year we are likely to recruit similar numbers. In fact, in the first half itself – first and second quarters — we will be recruiting more than 10,000,” UB Pravin Rao, Chief Operating Officer, Infosys, told reporters here.

On the recent layoffs, Rao, who along with the Co-Chairman of the company, Ravi Venkatesan, met the Minister of Electronics and IT Ravi Shankar Prasad, said this was a “regular performance-based thing”. Infosys asks 300-400 employees to leave every year, which is consistent, he added.

“So, we are actually creating more jobs, adding more people and letting go miniscule amount of people, purely from a performance-related perspective. I am very optimistic about the future and opportunities in this sector,” he said.

Rao added that a lot of transformation was taking place in the sector driven by technology and this was an opportunity for companies, such as Infosys, which expects more new jobs to be created.

The meeting with the Minister went on for around 30 minutes. Later Prasad told the media that several issues were discussed. “The Infosys COO has explained about the job opportunities. Tata Group Chairman has also said that Tata Consultancy Services has employed 2.5 lakh people in the past three years and this year they are going to employ 20,000 more.”

Prasad said IT companies such as TCS and Infosys continue to hire in large numbers.

These comments from the government and corporate leaders come at a time when there have been reports of layoffs across the IT sector, especially major IT companies, such as Wipro, Infosys, Cognizant and Tech Mahindra, which have initiated annual weeding out of bottom performers or non-performers.

Recent reports have raised concern among thousands of employees in the IT sector who fear being shown the door. This has also led to formation of employee unions, some of which have approached labour commissioners and State governments seeking intervention in the matter.