INFOSYS to hire 30,000 people inlcuding freshers

Infosys Technologies is back to hiring ways, after a year of mid-single-digit increments and a practical freeze on freshers.

Employees have also got double-digit salary hikes starting April 1.
Infosys said the average salary hike has been 14% for employees working in India and 2-3% for those onsite.

The company is also planning to add 30,000 employees to its current work force of 1,13,796.

Of these, 19,000 would be hired from campuses, 6,000 would be laterals, and 5,000 for its business process outsourcing (BPO) operations.

TV Mohandas Pai, board member and human resources development (HRD) head of Infosys, said that once the compensation increase comes into effect in April and July, it would be the highest among the Indian information technology (IT) companies and on a par with what tech multinationals are currently paying in India.

In the last fiscal, Infosys spent $134 million (around Rs 600 crore) on the compensation payouts, which was “the highest in the Indian IT industry”.

Pai said one of the reasons for the higher increment was an improved skillsets baseline that has been achieved through its new career plan - iRace — rolled out in October last year.

The programme has caused a controversy and is rumoured to have led to mass exits in December-January.

Under iRace, the company emphasised on improving technical abilities of staff before promotions.

Infosys staff had protested because many of them were “fitted in lower roles” and some were not given promotion after evaluation.
The programme had affected close to 4,500 employees.

However, after dialogue with representatives of disgruntled workers, the company has addressed their issues.

It has promoted close to 7,500 employees, of which 2,500 were those affected by I-Race.

Pai said the remaining 2000 would also getted promoted in October.

“The revamp in compensation is part of the iRace plan. We are increasing salaries to keep them in line with skill levels,” said Pai.

Will higher Indian wages erode Infosys’ cost competitiveness that it enjoys over bigger rivals?

Pai does not think so. He said improved technical depth of staff will help the company compete in value terms than pricing.
“It will help us command a better price in the market (like the multinationals),” he said.