Infosys’ attrition highest among top 3 IT majors

IT majors Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and Infosys saw their twelve-month trailing attrition rate rise during April-June 2022 from the end of March, while it has fallen marginally for Wipro. But all three of them saw significantly higher attrition compared to the year-ago quarter, according to their financial results.

India’s second largest IT firm Infosys by employee base reported the highest attrition of 28.4 per cent, a jump of 0.7 percentage points from the end of last quarter, while the largest software services exporter TCS saw the highest attrition rise of 2.3 percentage points from March-end sequentially. Meanwhile, the third largest IT firm Wipro’s attrition fell from 23.8 per cent at the end of March 31, 2022, to 23.3 per cent as of June 30, 2022.

Bengaluru-based Infosys also leads the pack in terms of net addition of employees during the April-June quarter of 2022. It added 20,588 software professionals, while Wipro added 15,331 software professionals. Mumbai-based TCS, with its sub-20 per cent attrition, made the least addition at 14,136 employees.

Together, their IT headcount stands at 11.65 lakh employees at the end of June. The three software exporters have cumulatively added 50,000 employees during April-June 2022. They added nearly 2 lakh technical employees to their teams on a net basis between April 2021 and March 2022, during the raging IT talent war in the country.

TCS CEO Rajesh Gopinathan had said after the results announcement that the firm’s attrition In April-June also had a seasonality factor as a number of junior employees of the company left for higher studies or other areas. He, however, pointed out that attrition has not flattened or started to dip. “On an absolute basis it is continuing to increase though on a percentage basis it is starting to flatten and that may continue into part of Q2 also.” There could, however, be some meaningful moderation in the second half of the year. “In the medium to long term, the supply side and the demand side is easing up in terms of talent coming from outside of the immediate industry system and that should play into the moderation of the attrition cycle,” he had said.

Infosys Chief Financial Officer Nilanjan Roy said in a statement, “We are fueling the strong growth momentum with strategic investments in talent through hiring and competitive compensation revisions. While this will impact margins in the immediate term, it is expected to reduce attrition levels and position us well for future growth. We continue to optimise various cost levers to drive efficiency in operations.”

Wipro CEO Thierry Delaporte had said after the results announcement that the company’s attrition is moderate compared to the previous three quarters, and he expects it to moderate in the coming quarters as well. In the previous quarter, the Bengaluru-based firm had decided to promote freshers on a quarterly basis, offer them clear five-year career paths and training as full-stack engineers before joining to make itself more attractive to new talent. “The quarterly promotions have been effective this month, and also salary increases for those eligible in September 2022,” Delaporte said recently. BusinessToday