After last quarter’s massive dip, Wipro adds 7,000 employees with plans to continue hiring in Q2

• Wipro reported that it added 7,000 employees to the company over the last three months during its first-quarter earnings call.
  
• Saurabh Govil, Wipro’s Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO), said the company will continue hiring in Q2.
  
• Even though Wipro doubled its hiring in 2019-20, its net addition of employees was in the red suggesting low attrition.
  

Wipro has hired new 7,000 employees in the last three months, their first quarter, between April to June. And, they plan to keep on hiring, according to Wipro’s Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO) Saurabh Govil.

This comes in the backdrop Wipro reporting the largest decline in employees during the last quarter in comparison to its peers Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Infosys and other Indian IT services companies.“Lateral hiring never stopped,” said Govil during the first-quarter earnings call. “We will continue to hire in Q2 based on demand,” he added.


Govil added that the company has started on-boarding freshers as per earlier offers. “It would be staggered and delayed based on business requirements,” he said.

Even last quarter, Govil asserted that hiring would not be suspended at Wipro in lieu of the coronavirus pandemic. However, the company did not rule out furloughs and leaves at the time.


Wipro in comparison to top Indian IT companies
Indian IT services companies have been pushing on fresh hiring as the industry’s attrition rate continues to remain flat. Despite new hires being on the rise, companies across the board reported a dip in total employees.

Even Wipro doubled its hiring in 2019-20, however, its total employee count was lower than the year before. Even its net addition of new employees has been the lowest in comparison to TCS and Infosys. While TCS’ numbers were in the ten-thousands, Wipro was still in single digits if not bleeding employees.


Last quarter, while Infosys also reported a dip in employees, Wipro’s drop in net addition was four times higher.


Even though Wipro plans to keep hiring in the coming quarter, Govil pointed out that all hiring will happen depending on demand.

Its utilisation levels this quarter also stood at 75% — 1.6% higher than the previous quarter. According to Wipro Chief Financial Officer (CFO), Jatin Dalal, higher utilisation was one of the factors behind Wipro’s margin expansion this quarter. “We also kept a tight watch on incremental spend… Third is foreign exchange,” he said.

Wipro Chairman Rishad Premji disclosed that the company hasn’t laid off a single employee during the coronavirus pandemic during the Annual General Meeting (AGM) on Monday.

The National Information Technology Senate (NITES) has alleged in May that Wipro was benching many employees, mainly those at its Pune office, who were subsequently laid off. A claim that Wipro denies.

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