Jefferies' monitoring of IT services hiring activity showed a mixed picture in January, with job postings declining month-over-month at the majority of firms it covers. Of the nine companies tracked in the report, five recorded decreases in advertised IT roles.
Largest decreases and notable moves
EPAM Systems (NYSE:EPAM) led the declines, with job listings down 14% month-over-month. Cognizant Technology Solutions (NASDAQ:CTSH) and Genpact (NYSE:G) each saw postings fall by 8% versus the prior month. Globant (NYSE:GLOB) and Gartner (NYSE:IT) also reported declines of 5% and 4%, respectively.
Not all companies in Jefferies' sample moved lower. Accenture (NYSE:ACN) posted a 2% increase in job listings, CGI Group saw a 1% rise, and ExlService Holdings (NASDAQ:EXLS) recorded a 4% gain. Unisys (NYSE:UIS) reported the largest month-over-month increase in the sample, with listings up 7%.
EPAM context
The job listings decline at EPAM comes at a time when the stock was trading close to its 52-week low of $128.78 and had fallen about 20% over the previous week. Separately, EPAM reported fourth-quarter 2025 results that exceeded expectations: earnings per share of $3.26 compared with a $3.15 forecast, and revenue of $1.41 billion versus an expected $1.39 billion. Jefferies' report noted that analysts had revised earnings estimates upward recently for EPAM, although concerns about the company's future growth were also highlighted and the stock's pre-market trading reflected those concerns.
Industry index and Jefferies' caveats
Jefferies' Job Listings Industry Index, which weights listings by company size, declined in January but remained above the lows recorded in 2023. The firm emphasized that job listings growth is generally directionally consistent with organic revenue growth for most companies in the sample. However, Jefferies cautioned that the level of job postings is not a reliable predictor of the magnitude of revenue changes with high confidence.
Jefferies also warned that idiosyncratic factors at individual companies can produce a dislocation between revenue trends and job listings growth in any quarter, meaning that company-specific events may drive divergence between hiring activity and financial performance.
Market and analyst reaction
The report did not detail widespread analyst rating changes following the companies' results. For EPAM specifically, the firm noted that several analysts had revised earnings estimates upward recently, but it said that rating updates from analyst firms had not yet been observed after the fourth-quarter results.