22 Jan 2009 Bangalore:For the second time in the past nine months, more people have left Wipro Technologies compared to those who joined its IT/BPO services businesses. At the end of the third quarter, the total headcount at Wipro’s IT business stood at 96,965 as against 97,552 in the second quarter.
It reported a negative headcount addition of 1,092 for its global IT services segment and 226 for its BPO division. The first time that Wipro reported a negative headcount addition was for the first quarter of the current fiscal. The only positive increase in headcount was in its India and Middle-East IT services business segments. Wipro has effected a 7-8% hike in wages for its offshore employees, much lower than the 12-14% of last year.
Wipro executive V-P (human resources), Pratik Kumar said: “Given the current economic environment, we will be extremely selective in our hiring while looking at improving our productivity levels.”
However, the company says the negative headcount addition had nothing much to do with the current business environment. Mr Kumar said, “Our concern at this stage is how to make sure that we do not have idle resources while improving productivity through higher utilisation.”
He added that the company had been able to drive higher productivity through better control of processes and ensured that the right resources are allocated to the right jobs. The utilisation rate at Wipro’s global IT business has been steadily increasing and at the end of the third quarter, stood at 79.4%.
Wipro, which had brought in a new measure in its HR practice of employing fresh engineering graduates at its BPO business, has said it’s still studying the issue and may look at deploying these employees for its India and Middle-East businesses.
Wipro had made 14,000 offers to fresh engineering graduates for FY09 and is in the process of absorbing all of them. For FY10, it has made 8,000 offers. During the quarter, Wipro had made a gross addition of 1,900 people and this included 1,400 freshers.
Source:
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Infotech/Wipro_goes_slow_on_IT_hiring/articl
It reported a negative headcount addition of 1,092 for its global IT services segment and 226 for its BPO division. The first time that Wipro reported a negative headcount addition was for the first quarter of the current fiscal. The only positive increase in headcount was in its India and Middle-East IT services business segments. Wipro has effected a 7-8% hike in wages for its offshore employees, much lower than the 12-14% of last year.
Wipro executive V-P (human resources), Pratik Kumar said: “Given the current economic environment, we will be extremely selective in our hiring while looking at improving our productivity levels.”
However, the company says the negative headcount addition had nothing much to do with the current business environment. Mr Kumar said, “Our concern at this stage is how to make sure that we do not have idle resources while improving productivity through higher utilisation.”
He added that the company had been able to drive higher productivity through better control of processes and ensured that the right resources are allocated to the right jobs. The utilisation rate at Wipro’s global IT business has been steadily increasing and at the end of the third quarter, stood at 79.4%.
Wipro, which had brought in a new measure in its HR practice of employing fresh engineering graduates at its BPO business, has said it’s still studying the issue and may look at deploying these employees for its India and Middle-East businesses.
Wipro had made 14,000 offers to fresh engineering graduates for FY09 and is in the process of absorbing all of them. For FY10, it has made 8,000 offers. During the quarter, Wipro had made a gross addition of 1,900 people and this included 1,400 freshers.
Source:
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Infotech/Wipro_goes_slow_on_IT_hiring/articl
