Attrition spikes for Wipro, Infosys amid inflated hiring plans for FY22

Infosys saw attrition shoot up to 25.5%, the highest in recent quarters as India’s third largest IT firm continued to be a poaching ground for rivals attracting global clients. Wipro reported a spike in attrition to 22.7% for the quarter ended December, significantly higher as compared to 20.5% and 15.5% during the second and first quarters, respectively.

Wipro reported a net addition of 10,306 employees during the quarter, taking its total headcount to 231,671. This is a net increase of 41,363 over the last year. Infosys added 15125 people in the quarter taking its total strength to 292067.

Over the past year, Indian IT services companies have been dealing with an increase in attrition as demand for digital talent outstrips supply.

Wipro CEO Thierry Delaporte said that the company continued to focus on hiring, adding over 34,000 people in the last nine months. “We have added in three quarters what took 11 quarters in the past,” he said. “We remain focused on building world-class talent and on ensuring that growth isn’t constrained.”

The company will bring on board 70% more freshers in FY22, compared to the previous fiscal. Delaporte said that attrition was expected to stabilise, although it would take a few more quarters for it to slow down.

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“We continue to prioritise investments in talent acquisition and development and have further increased our global graduate hiring program to over 55,000 for FY22 to support our growth ambitions”, Infosys’ Chief Financial Officer Nilanjan Roy said.

Wipro rolled out a second round of salary hikes for 80% of its employees during the previous quarter and is taking steps to ensure that supply would not be a constraint to the demand requirement, Wipro’s Chief HRO Saurabh Govil said.

Delaporte said that all Wipro offices globally would be closed for the next four weeks as a proactive measure given the spread of the Omicron variant. Further, plans to return to office in a hybrid model would be calibrated in the context of the evolving situation keeping employee and client preferences in mind. As of now, 90% of all employees globally have received the first dose of the vaccine and 65% are fully vaccinated.