Bad news for employees, IT giants postpone salary hikes

In what is considered as a bad news for the employees, three Indian software giants – Infosys, HCL Tech and Wipro postponed the salary hikes to later period.
This decision is an indication of the challenges software companies are facing in the current economic climate, with projects being scaled down or cancelled.
Infosys used to typically implement the salary hike from April for employees below the senior management level. But now it is not happening.
On the other hand, HCLTech has announced deferment of hike for junior and mid-level employees by one quarter.
Following in the footsteps of these two companies, Wipro has postponed the salary hike to third quarter in a clear departure from its previous practice of implementing salary hikes in September every year.
The issue of salary hikes arises at a critical juncture when companies are striving to safeguard their margins and reduce wage bills, with particular concern surrounding Wipro. Although Wipro has assured that its margins will remain within a comparable range, it plans to proceed with pay raises in the third quarter.
“We did our last salary increase in September of last year, and we plan to do that for this year sometime in quarter three,” Chief Financial Officer Jatin Dalal said in the company’s call with analysts, adding that the impact was not being factored in for Q2.
During the press conference, Wipro’s Chief Human Resources Officer, Saurabh Govil, affirmed that the company remains committed to its quarterly promotion cycles. Govil stated that the promotion cycles were carried out in Q1 and will continue as planned in Q2, reported Moneycontrol.
The business demands have impacted Wipro’s ability to onboard all the freshers it had recruited in the previous year. In the current fiscal year, Wipro did not participate in campus hiring, and it also did not onboard any new hires during Q1. The company has not disclosed specific hiring targets, but it concluded the quarter with a reduction of 8,812 employees.