An Indian multinational information technology company, Infosys fired 600 freshers after they failing in an internal assessment test.
However, Infosys co-founder Kris Gopalakrishnan has said that layoffs aren’t desirable, but can’t be avoided.
Infosys co-founder Kris Gopalakrishnan said the layoffs have been disheartening. The IT industry currently employs 5 lakh people. The industry has been continuously adding employees on a net basis over the past 4 decades. According to the current status, over 1 lakh employees have lost their jobs.
Infosys co-founder Kris Gopalakrishnan said, “If the company board or CEO decides to cut 10% of expenses, the easiest way to do it is to cut 10% of the workforce and you immediately meet your goal.”
“That’s mechanical and indiscriminate and could cause damage far beyond what you expect”, Kris Gopalakrishnan added.
“On the other hand, if the layoffs are necessitated by changes and if you do it in a humane way, it’s not desirable but it cannot be avoided,” he said.
Post the layoffs now Union minister of Electronics and Information Technology, Ashwin Vaishnaw seeking interventions on revocations of offer letters to aspiring techies by IT giants.
“ForIT (Forum of IT Professionals) demands Infosys immediately stop these illegal actions and take back sacked employees. The government must intervene and ensure that jobs of IT professionals are protected,” it said in a statement on Infosys retrenchment by the Forum.
ForIT has also questioned Infosys for laying off freshers. Additionally, the forum has asked the affected employees not to resign and offered its assistance to those undergoing training to face internal assessments.
IT general secretary Praveen Chandrahas told TOI they have been getting calls from hundreds of Infosys freshers, facing this problem and suspect the number of affected in Telangana alone could be around 500.
Apart from Infosys, Additionally, Wipro also sacked 452 fresher employees due to poor performance. The company fired the employees after taking an internal test. However, the company also waived the training cost of Rs.75,000/- for the freshers.
ForIT has been filing and fighting cases on behalf of techies in the court and the labour commissioner’s office and it is demanding to reinstate of the freshers.
The current attrition rate of Infosys in Q3FY23 stood at 24.3% down from 27.1% in the September 2022 quarter. During the June 2022 quarter, the attrition rate was 28.4%.
The company’s total employee count stood at 3,46,845 in Q3FY23 a net addition of 1,627 employees compared to 3,45,218 employees in Q2 of FY23. In the Q3FY22 quarter Infosys, the headcount stood at 2,92,067 employees.